KTVU Fox 2 Unsolved: Oakland father of three shot dead
OAKLAND, Calif. - Quennell Harris Jr. was a loving father of three. He worked as a manager at Comcast.
His family says he stayed out of trouble. But in August, he was shot and killed in East Oakland.
"My pain is so deep, it’s like I'm cut in half," said Harris' grandmother Paula Hunter.
Harris was at a friend’s party a little after midnight on Aug. 23 when the sounds of gunfire interrupted the celebration. His friend was shot in the leg. Harris helped him to the car and was driving him to the hospital. But then, more gunshots.
"Somebody pulled up alongside and started shooting," said his father Quennell Harris Sr.
Harris was found in his car near 99th Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard.
"For someone to take his life. He was so loved by his family. He loved his kids," Hunter said.
Harris was a doting father and talented rapper.
"He was considered an up and coming artist in the Bay Area, in Oakland, rap artist, well known," said his cousin Charmaine Stevens.
He had dreams.
In a recent video, Harris told an interviewee, "I'm working on Black Lion, which is going to be my debut album. Everything before that has just been mixed tapes."
Stevens said there was no reason for him to lose his life.
"We just want his legacy to be that of someone that was a caring, loving individual, a family man, a hard-working man
Now his legacy has been cut short.
"And i don’t want them to portray him as one of them, you know, hoodlums, thugs in the streets. Because that he wasn’t," said his cousin Laney Johnson-Bailey.
Harris' girlfriend Katrina Watts said, "He was funny and he definitely took good care of his kids and a hard working man. There was nothing I could ask him he wouldn’t do it.
His family us still feeling the hurt months later. They have a plea for anyone involved in the shooting.
"Whoever did it we just need them, we need to come out, turn themselves in," said his mother La Joya Juniel-Parker. "We just need help because he was just taken too early from us."