Tuesday should have been Synika James’ 39th birthday. But instead of celebrating with him by going out to eat, his family and friends released balloons in his memory across the street from where he died in St. Paul.
It has been two years since James was fatally shot while saving children from gunfire that erupted during a vigil for a homicide victim. There have been no arrests in James’ death, and police and his family continue to ask anyone with information to come forward. A $6,000 reward is being offered in the case.
“We need closure,” Diana James, Synika’s mother, said this week. She believes that people know who is responsible for killing her son.
Synika James’ six children “don’t understand why everyone else’s killer has been caught and his hasn’t,” James said. “It’s hard for them and I don’t even know what to tell them.”
On Oct. 14, 2015, James was attending a vigil for Naressa “NuNu” Turner on the three-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of the 20-year-old woman in a Dayton’s Bluff alley. James and his sisters had known Turner’s mother since they were teens and wanted to support their friend.
As dozens gathered at 6 p.m. on a Wednesday in the alley at Cypress Street and Reaney Avenue, a vehicle pulled up. Someone jumped out and fired at the crowd.
Turner’s killing was gang-related, and investigators are considering the possibility that James’ slaying was also, though police have emphasized that James was not involved in gang activity and was not the target of the shooting.
“We believe he was an innocent bystander who got in the way to protect children once shots were fired,” St. Paul police investigator Shawn Shanley said last year.
James’ family raised $5,000 for a reward fund in 2016 and $1,000 is being offered from Crime Stoppers of Minnesota.
Family and friends gathered Tuesday on Payne Avenue, off East Seventh Street, across the street from the fire station where they drove James for help after he was shot. His sister’s fiance read a prayer and others — those who were not overcome by emotion — offered remembrances of him on his birthday.
“Some days it feels like it was last week and other days it feels like two years,” Diana James said. Either way, she said she knows her son was taken too soon, and that she and her family need answers.
James’ homicide came during a spurt of other, apparently unrelated killings on the East Side in October 2015, one of which is also unsolved.
Htoo Baw, a 54-year-old father of three children, died after he was shot Oct. 5, 2015, while unloading his car outside his home on East Orange Avenue near Walsh Street. His family said at the time that he had no enemies and they feared the motive was robbery.
“We have no idea,” said Ehgay Poe, Htoo Baw’s 25-year-old daughter, this week. “We’re still waiting for an answer. We just want to know who did it and why.”
A reward is also being offered in Htoo Baw’s killing.
Police ask anyone with information about either homicide to call them at 651-266-5650 or Crime Stoppers of Minnesota, which accepts anonymous tips, at 800-222-TIPS (8477).