Ten-year-old William Isaiah Munford Jr. was remembered yesterday for his exuberant smile and mourned for his senseless death from a gun allegedly fired by another child.
Several hundred people packed the Whitestone Baptist Church in West Baltimore for his funeral, where he was described as a religious child, a smiling Cub Scout and a student who excelled in math and science at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School.
To ministers at the funeral, the boy's death symbolized society's escalating violence. The boy, slain Dec. 21, was Baltimore's 19th homicide victim under age 14 this year.
"It used to be at the nighttime when crooks and robbers came out," the Rev. James Butler said in his eulogy. "But now it's all day long. . . .
"This ain't no black thing, this ain't no white thing. This is an everybody thing . . . drugs are on all the corners. We used to say we're going to move to the county, but the trouble followed us to the county."
William Munford's small body was laid out in a white casket, surrounded by dozens of red and white carnations. A bouquet of baby's breath sat by his head.
The photograph used on the memorial program showed a boy with a big grin, wearing a tie and sport coat, standing by a giant crayon.
On the church altar, four white and purple banners carried the words, "Love, Peace, Joy, Hope."
Speakers at the funeral asked mourners to support the Munford family, and a few also asked them to show sympathy to the family of the 10-year-old boy, William Munford's best friend, charged in the killing.
As they spoke, the accused boy's mother sat in the back of the church and wept.
Her son was charged as a juvenile last week with killing the Munford youth with a sawed-off shotgun the boys had found in an alley near their Northwest Baltimore homes. Police said the child aimed the gun at the Munford boy's chest and it went off at close range.
Because The Sun's policy is to not publish the names of juveniles accused of a crime, the accused child and his mother have not been named.
The Rev. Willie Ray, a preacher devoted to ending street violence in Baltimore, noted that the two families are not bitter toward each other.
And when City Council President Mary Pat Clarke thanked the Munford family "for the kindness they showed toward the other family" and asked mourners to show their sympathy toward both families, the church echoed with Amens.
"It's time for us to save our children . . . a gun kills. If we know where they are, we call [police]. We get them gone," said Mrs. Clarke.
Last week, relatives of both the victim and the accused said they believed the shooting was an accident, and insisted that the suspect did not mean to kill his friend when the gun went off. But a city Circuit Court judge refused last week to release the boy to his mother's custody pending a February trial.
"William had some very special gifts," said Addie Johnson, the principal at Coleman elementary.
"Nothing can compare to the loss of a child."