‘I want justice’: Birmingham mom grieves 16-year-old son found shot in the head on interstate

By Carol Robinson

The grieving mother of a 16-year-old boy who was found shot to death on a Birmingham interstate said she’s fought to keep her kids from becoming gun violence victims and now she wants justice in her son’s slaying.

Kavas Jemison, who just completed the 10th grade at Jackson-Olin High School, was killed July 23. He was found in the back seat of a sedan on Interstate 59/20 in Birmingham, dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

“It hurt seeing my son like that,’’ said 41-year-old Akita Jemison, the victim’s mother. “I don’t care how they portray my son. I want justice.”

West Precinct officers responded just after 8 p.m. that Saturday to a report of a person shot on I-59/20 southbound at the Bush Boulevard exit in Ensley.

When they arrived, they found Kavas unresponsive in the back seat. Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service pronounced the teen dead on the scene.

The shooting is believed to have happened in Pratt City, near Kavas’s home.

Officer Truman Fitzgerald said whoever was driving the red or burgundy sedan was not at the location when police and fire medics arrived.

A short time later, a female showed up at the West Precinct and said she may have been involved in a shooting.

Police, who have previously said the slain teen was involved in “nefarious activity,” said they have identified those involved and questioned them.

The case was presented to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office and no charges were immediately filed. Fitzgerald said charges may be brought at a later date.

Jemison said she believes her son was set up to be killed. She said he had been involved in fights at school, for which he was sent to alternative school and eventually virtual learning.

“He would come home and say, ‘they keep picking at me,’’’ his mother said. “I just feel so hurt when you reach out for help and they push you away.”

“He loved school,’’ Jemison said. “When they put him on virtual learning, I told them they were opening up a path of destruction for my son.”

About a year ago, Kavas began taking part in the Offender Alumni Association, a non-profit group that began with formerly incarcerated people who wanted to help with re-entry into society. It expanded to include a family support group and Youth Career Readiness Initiative with at-risk youth.

Kavas attended the youth program that met on Saturdays and involved mentoring.

“I want people to know the steps I took as as a mom,’’ said Jemison, a single mother who has two other children – a 13-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter. “It’s hard when you’re doing it on your own and trying to bring up your kids the right way.”

Her son, she said, had been in minor trouble. She said at one point she learned he had a gun.

“He told family members someone was trying to kill him,’’ she said. “I made him get rid of it. But I see why my son thought he needed protection.”

Kavas, she said, was known throughout their neighborhood – and many others – for cutting grass and walking his dogs.

“My son wasn’t a problem to anybody,’’ she said. “He wasn’t affiliated with gangs or anything.”

In the hours leading up to his death, Kavas had bagged 17 bags of trash. “I told him, ‘I got something special for you. We’re going to barbecue and make cookies,’ and he said he wanted some brownies.’’

Jemison had to go somewhere and told him to stay at the house, but when she got home, Kavas was gone. She said he had gone to a barbecue at a neighbor’s house.

“What happened from the time of that barbecue until 8 p.m., I don’t know but somebody knows something,’’ she said. “Something is not right.”

Jemison said she heard a gunshot that evening, and now believes it was shot that killed her son. He was then supposedly placed into the back seat of the car, she said, was being taken somewhere to be dumped when the car instead stopped on the interstate with the police close behind.

“I feel like that’s unjustifiable,’’ she said. “He might have been involved in ‘nefarious activities’ but I never knew my son was part of that. He was not involved in nefarious activities on that Saturday.”

Whatever her son took part in, she said, was out of fear.

Since his death, she said, she been made aware of social media postings about the killing. “There’s a Facebook page where they made a mockery out of my son’s death,’’ she said. “They had a Birthday Bash in Woodlawn to celebrate coming to kill my son.”

“It made me sick to hear them talk about my son and what they did to him,’’ Jemison said. “He was shot in the back of the head.”

“You killed him and then you moved him. Y’all are cowards because you waited until his back was turned,’’ she said. “What’s justifiable about that?”

Lisa Guss, a family engagement specialist with the Offender Alumni Association, said she met the Jemison family through OAA. She said she got word of Kavas’s death while she was returning to Alabama from an out-of-state trip.

“It just took me for a loop,’’ Guss said. “We’re doing everything we can to help the youth to keep them from violence. You’re always going to ask myself what could we have done, what can the organization do better?”

“The main thing is to try to catch them in time so they won’t die on the streets and so that they can do better,’’ Guss said. “We never thought that this would happen to Kavas. It’s heartbreaking.”

Offender Alumni Association had counselors at Saturday’s meeting to meet with the other youth. “You can feel a shift,’’ she said.

Friends and family also had a vigil in Kavas’s memory Saturday night.

Jemison said she wants her son to be remembered as loving and kind. She said she will advocate for other children not to meet the same fate.

“These kids need something to do,’’ she said. “I will fight for that until the day I die. I couldn’t save my son, but maybe I can save someone else’s.”

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