Mayor Vincent Gray is expected to speak Wednesday evening at a memorial service for Omar Sykes, the Howard University student killed last week, NBC Washington reports.
The service is scheduled for 6 p.m. on the Howard campus at Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel.
Sykes’ death has prompted many news reports; a links roundup is below.
Friends and family were shocked by the death of the community service-oriented young man, who was a leader of Howard’s chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, a coed service fraternity. He was also a member of the Noble Black Society, an organization founded at Howard that defines itself on its Web site as a “family oriented entertainment collective focused on the purpose of Redefining Black.”
“Just to think something like this could happen is just unheard of,” said Lance Coleman, a 22-year-old Howard student and a close friend of Sykes’s. “He was probably the most well-liked guy in my life. He was always about helping people. . . . The world just lost someone pretty amazing.”
WAMU (audio is on the WAMU website):
Howard University held a vigil Friday night for 22-year-old Omar Sykes, a student who was shot and killed near the school’s campus in northwest D.C. on July 4.
Sykes was walking on Fairmont Street near the campus with another student late Thursday night, when they were approached by two men, who tried to rob them.
“A lot of kids are really terrified. They can’t have fun out in the night or anything like that. It is really, really, really scary,” one Howard University student told News4’s Megan McGrath.
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