US boy shot dead hours after event for killed cousin: police

Columbia: A 12-year-old cousin of a teenage American football player shot dead in December was himself shot and killed hours after an event honoring his slain relative, police said Sunday.

Jajuan Hubert Latham was shot in the head in Knoxville, Tennessee on Saturday, shortly after attending a celebrity basketball game in honor of Zaevion Dobson, 15, who was killed in December shielding his friends from gunfire.

The death of Dobson, a high-school athlete, prompted President Barack Obama to tweet at the time: "Zaevion Dobson died saving three friends from getting shot. He was a hero at 15. What`s our excuse for not acting?"
Latham was shot in the head and rushed to a hospital by his father, but doctors were unable to save him, Knoxville police said in a statement.

Latham was hit while he was sitting in the back of his father`s car after shooting erupted between a large number of people in a park and the occupants of two vehicles driving by.

"We went and had a good time and he was a good kid," his father Hubert Latham said, referring to the basketball game, which was also designed to appeal to youngsters to stop the violence.

"They took my son`s life."