Families and friends of the beloved owner and grandmother of Harlem winery, fatally fired in a bullet hail for someone else, marched to the site of his death on Saturday, singing “say his name, Mom Ze” and remembering her as the “mayor of Harlem”.
Some 30 protesters walked from 145th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard to West 113th Street, placing a white crown and illuminating candles out of the Excenia Mette building before praying, singing and speaking with love for the victim.
“My grandmother should be here,” said Disconscious Nieto Jaran Jordan Jr., 24. We have to stop armed violence without meaning. “
Mette, 61, was shot out of her building when a bullet destined to others hit them in the head.
“This pain is like no pain that I felt in my life,” Jordan said.
The event began further in the National Action Network of Al Sharpton. Sharpton and his granddaughter joined the protesters.
A close friend and Mette’s work partner, Stacey Moyler, spoke in the vigil and remembered to call her the “mayor of Harlem.”
“Let me tell you about this boss, because this woman is a boss,” Moyler said.
“I remember we were driving in my car on seventh avenue, and we stopped in the light and then someone shouted,” mom is. “I said:” Girl, your mayor of Harlem? “And then we drive and she is greeting, we stop at the next light,” Mom Zee, call me, “I said,” You are the mayor of Harlem. “
Dearious Smith, 23, was arrested in relation to the fatal shooting.
It was believed that Smith had exchanged shots with the gunman still in general whose street gunshine put came out to see his grandson, police sources said.
Smith lived near the old Mette business, Momma Zee’s Food To Plez Deli, which was the first black property winery in the city when he opened it in the 1980s.
“It should be alive today,” said Ashley Sharpton about Mette. “She should be alive to tell her own story.
“Momma Zee was special to all of us,” he told Sharpton.
“She would feed the people in this neighborhood,” he said. “His sister said the day of the demonstration, which he probably fed and dressed the people who ended up shooting it.
“Let’s use this as a attention call. We have to stop this armed violence, on behalf of Mama Zee.”
