Before a bullet wound took his ability to walk and talk at age 18, Jonathan Gray was known for his energy and sense of humor. 

“He was always a funny kid and he was always an active kid,” said Gray’s aunt, Tremaine Pollard. His stepmother, Vanisha Adams, Gray’s primary guardian throughout his childhood, described him as “very goofy.”

He was especially close with his sisters, Aaliyah and Jamyrah, Adams said. The three often spent time with their large extended family of cousins, going on day trips to different parts of Baton Rouge. 

In elementary school, teachers knew Gray because of his near-perfect penmanship. 

“He was called ‘the boy with the beautiful handwriting,'” Pollard said. “He had absolutely beautiful handwriting. You would think it was printed like that because he’d write so neat.”

Gray eventually died after this summer’s shooting, but not immediately. He’s among the growing number of Baton Rouge shooting victims who linger, causing untold suffering for both the victim and their families. Police and prosecutors are alarmed by the climbing trend. 

A lifelong Baton Rouge resident, Gray loved music and was a skilled artist, his stepmother said. He considered himself a rapper, “but he never made a song,” Adams laughed.

He also wrote love poems to girls.

“Girls were everything,” Adams said. “He was going to get married.”

Although described by family members as bright and talented, Gray struggled with traditional academics and left school before his high school graduation, instead taking on a job at Sonic to earn some money. 

On the night of July 20, he had finished a shift at the restaurant earlier in the evening when Adams said she received a call from a family member with news that Gray had been shot as he sat on the front porch of a relative’s house on Curtis Street. 

The bullet, which entered through the side of his face through his jaw, paralyzed Gray from the waist down and left his vocal cords and vertebrate crushed and his mouth wired shut, his aunt explained. He spent weeks at Baton Rouge’s Our Lady of the Lake hospital before his family made the decision to move him to a nearby assisted living facility. 

The loss of physical freedom after his shooting was devastating for Gray.

“He couldn’t speak unless he was writing on an iPad. Then he started telling his family that he didn’t want to be here anymore,” Pollard said. “He was like, I can’t eat, I can’t drink. I can’t do the things that I want to do.'”

The family watched in horror …….

Source: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_e4b8f3b8-592d-11ec-9065-0b60f2086783.html