Holding a poster covered with dozens of photos of a smiling young man throughout different stages of his life, Lanna Green helped place a small wooden cross onto the lawn of Mt. Beulah Missionary Baptist Church in Hanley Hills. Both the photos and the cross were memorials to her son, Andrew, who died seven months ago in a shooting that is still unsolved.
“Today’s his birthday,” Green said on Saturday, December 2. “He would have been 30 years old as of today.”
Andrew Green was one of three victims in a triple homicide in Pine Lawn on April 26, part of a pattern of murders in St. Louis County that is trending.
Continuing what is now an annual tradition, members of Mt. Beulah Missionary Baptist Church placed 193 crosses on their front lawn on Saturday. Each cross represents a victim of homicide in St. Louis city or county during 2017.
The number is higher than it was in 2016, and there were still 29 days left in the year.
Mt. Beulah Pastor E.G. Shields Sr. said it has always been difficult to discern the exact number of homicides, especially in the county. Shields stays in touch with the county medical examiner’s office to get as close as possible to memorializing each one.
“One homicide is one too many,” Shields said. “As I watch the news day after day, I’m outraged at the many senseless murders that take place day after day in our community.
Backed up by the Mt. Beulah men’s chorus, Shields and other members of the clergy spoke about what could be done to prevent these murders, and advocated for finding healing in prayer and church community.
“I don’t have a political solution, a judicial or economic solution,” Shields said. “But what I do offer is a biblical and spiritual solution.”
The event had another message, though, one Shields understands well. He called the crosses “a visual statement and protest against guns and gun violence in our community.” Shields’ own daughter died by gun violence in 1986.
In addition to the crosses placed on December 2, Mt. Beulah welcomes any community member to place a cross on its lawn as a memorial for a friend or family member who has died violently.
Rev. Earl E. Nance Jr. of Greater Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church said like the country as a whole, St. Louis has had more than its share of violence in the past year and that religious communities have a duty to reach out to young people.
“We cannot give up on our children,” Nance said. “We must save the ones that can be saved, that want to be saved, that look to us for guidance and for leadership. And I just believe that God has not brought us this far to leave us.”
Lanna Green believes that, too. There are a lot of factors she thinks contribute to violence, from loose gun control laws to the decline of prayer in schools. In the social climate she grew up in, Green said, her son would not have died.
There are no suspects that Green knows of in her son’s murder, although Crimestoppers has offered a $5,000 reward for information.
Andrew Green left behind six children; the youngest, named after him, is seven months old. Lanna Green remembers her son as a lover of children, women and life in general. She does not think he was involved in anything that would have led to his death.
But although there are plenty of things Green said that may have prevented her son’s murder, there’s little she can imagine now that would lessen her pain.
“I’ve been going through it for seven months, and I’ll still be going through it when they do solve the case,” Green said. “Because he’s not here no more. I don’t laugh with him no more.”
Jessica Karins is an editorial intern for the St. Louis American from Webster University.
