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1,300 mourners pay respects to Homewood victims Community involvement urged after girl, father die Thursday, January 31, 2002 By Johnna A. Pro, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Amid calls for actions to purge a community of drugs and violence, more than 1,300 people attended the funeral yesterday of Parrish L. Freeman and Taylor Lorraine Coles, the father and daughter who perished in a hail of bullets in a Homewood restaurant.
During a 90-minute service in Mount Ararat Baptist Church that was part Gospel praise, part political rally, the church's pastor, the Rev. William H. Curtis, drew a chorus of "amens" from the mourners, whose community was shattered by the triple homicide that left Freeman and his 8-year-old daughter dead.
Taylor and Freeman were gunned down Friday night in Mr. Tommy's Sandwich Shop and Car Wash. Police said the third victim, Thomas Mitchell III, was the target of the attack, which was drug-related. Taylor's mother, Terri Coles, also was shot, and her brother, Parrish Freeman Jr., witnessed the shootings.
Curtis drew his inspiration for yesterday's eulogy from the Biblical story of the prophet Elijah being called to the kingdom of heaven and leaving the prophet Elisha behind.
With Elijah gone, the townspeople of Jericho went to Elisha to express their concerns about the good city's bad water. Elisha purified the water after he had them bring him salt in a new bowl.
The deaths of Taylor and her father -- like Elijah's departure -- create the conditions for people to draw together to purify their community, Curtis said.
Pittsburgh, like Jericho, is a good city, Curtis said. But like Jericho, the water -- in this case influences that can destroy a community -- is bad.
"The water has got to be bad when a family can't gather in a public place," Curtis said. "The water has got to be bad when an 8-year-old has to worry about more than just being an 8-year-old. God took an active father -- not an absent father -- and an innocent little girl to provide the reason for this meeting."
Curtis called on political leaders to join neighborhood members in finding solutions to the problems the community faced.
The minister evoked laughter and cheers when he reminded the mourners that on Jan. 20 -- just five days before the shootings -- Coles and Freeman and their children had joined the church.
"God sometimes comes early. He's never late," Curtis shouted. "Satan is still stupid. God secured them before Satan struck."
Yesterday's service drew a standing-room-only crowd in a church that seats 1,300 people.
Among the mourners were Pittsburgh City Council members, Mayor Tom Murphy, and Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent John Thompson.
The "homegoing service," as it is called in the Baptist religion, began at 11 a.m. when more than 50 members of the Coles and Freeman families formed a procession into the church to pay their last respects to Taylor and Parrish, who lay in matching white caskets at the altar.
Guest speakers at the service included Tim Stevens, the head of the Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP, and the Rev. David Taylor, pastor of St. Charles Lwanga, which operates Holy Rosary School, where Taylor Coles was a third-grader.
"Just how much we can bear is the question we have to leave with today," Stevens said.
"As a community, we cannot take more of these deaths. We have to take command of our community. We have to take command of the hearts of the children we raise. There are people in this room still selling drugs. Put them down. If you know people selling drugs, ask them to put them down."
After the service, at least 300 of the mourners made their way to St. Peter's Cemetery in Lincoln-Lemington, where father and daughter were buried side by side after a brief service.
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