Charles “CJ” Brown rolled through life his own way. Literally.
He dreamed of being a basketball player and was known for his impressive moves on roller skates. Most of all, the 15-year-old was the one others gravitated toward, his family said.
“He was so different. He was unapologetically Charles — like, with no regrets,” his mother, Ashley Heard, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “‘This is just me. This is what you get.’”
She can’t comprehend why someone shot her son while he spent the night at a friend’s house, not far from his own Cobb County home. On the morning of May 28, Heard got several calls from a number she didn’t recognize before she answered. She couldn’t believe what her son’s friend told her.
“CJ’s been shot.”
The day Charles was shot, he was the third metro Atlanta teenager injured by gunfire in eight hours. Earlier that day Bre’Asia Powell, 16, and another teen were shot outside Benjamin E. Mays High School in Atlanta. Bre’Asia died from her injuries. Two days later Brian Brown, 17, of Powder Springs was shot to death in Douglas County, investigators said.
The deadly trend isn’t unique to metro Atlanta. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of children and teens killed by bullets increased 50% in the United States, according to a national research study.
The number and rate of children and teens killed by gunfire in 2021 were both higher than at any point since at least 1999, the earliest year for which information about those younger than 18 is available in the CDC’s mortality database, the Pew Research Center determined. The majority of gun deaths among children were homicides, the study found.
Heard never imagined her son would become a victim.
She had given him permission to spend the night at a friend’s house. But that plan changed and Charles had ended up at another friend’s house for the night.
The next morning, Charles was shot in the face; investigators believe he was asleep at the time, Heard would later learn. The bullet damaged his brain, and he likely didn’t feel any pain, doctors told her. Charles died at 6:04 p.m. May 28 at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital.
Three weeks later, Heard and her family still await answers; the case remains under investigation.
“None of us are able to grieve properly because we can’t get past the angry phase,” Heard said. “From the way we feel, there’s been no respect for human life. Nobody seems to know answers and that’s what hurts.”
Charles had just finished his freshman year at Campbell High School and stayed busy helping with his 2-year-old sister. The middle of five children, he had recently bought himself a pair of clippers and hoped to work alongside his stepfather, a barber, to earn some money. He would have celebrated his 16th birthday on Aug. 1.
“He was just starting to live life and enjoy himself,” said Charles’ stepfather, Franklin Gillis. “It’s hard not seeing him every day. I can’t laugh with him. Can’t play a game.”
Dozens of friends attended a memorial balloon release and funeral. After the service, several people released white doves.
“On the count of three, let’s send these doves up with our love and prayers to Charles,” a pastor said that day. “We love you and we set you free until we meet again, and meet again we will. One. Two. Three.”
Then, the family did the only thing that made sense: they rented out a roller skating rink. Those who loved Charles laced up their skates in his memory.
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