Font ResizeOAKLAND — Ronnie Grier was an outgoing, gregarious 16-year-old who liked to make people laugh.
This makes his killing harder for family and friends to accept.
The Rudsdale Academy 11th-grader was found shot to death about 12:45 a.m. Friday in the street at the intersection of Sunnymere and Van Mourik avenues, not far from an on-ramp to Interstate 580 at the top of Seminary Avenue.
Police are still not sure if he was killed there or elsewhere. Sgt. Caesar Basa said no motive has been established and no arrests have been made.
The killing has left relatives and friends shaken.
Grier's mother, Lanikka Shelton, lives in Hayward. But her son, the oldest of four children, was staying with another relative in East Oakland.
Shelton said Tuesday that Grier was "a great son, very loving." She said her 2-year-old daughter — her youngest — keeps asking where her brother is and wants her "to call Ronnie. I just say he has gone bye-bye."
Shelton will remember Grier as "a comedian who liked to make people laugh."
He liked football and basketball, playing video games and listening to music, just like most boys his age, she said.
Grier had only spent a week at Rudsdale — which has 150 students at its East Oakland campus — before he was killed. He still made an impression, said an administrator who did not want her name used. "He was here just a few days but you could see he was a great
His family cannot think of why anyone would want to hurt him, much less kill him, his mother said.
"He never had any problems with anyone; he was never in any trouble. That makes this even worse," she said.
Funeral services for Grier will be held at noon Monday at Fuller Funerals, 4647 International Blvd.
Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland are offering up to a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer. Anyone with information can call police at 510-238-3821 or Crime Stoppers at 510-777-8572 or 510-777-3211.
