Kids, parents pack Spokane Valley street where 17-year-old was killed to honor his memory

In the darkness covering a Spokane Valley street on Thursday night where a 17-year-old football player and aspiring firefighter was shot and killed by an armed driver last week, his classmates and friends broke out in their school's fight song to honor his memory.

Holding candles and donning T-shirts depicting Lewis and Clark High School student Carter Cochran as an angel, the teenagers all sang together, through tears, in front of flowers and photos of Cochran that lied on the sidewalk just off East 16th Avenue.

They recalled Cochran as an average, goofy teenager who loved his family, faith and friends. They remembered his size 151/2 shoes (which his grandmother had to special order), his love of Crumbl cookies, his eyes getting wide when he saw a pizza, how he spent sports trips playing pranks on his friends, and how people's lives were changed when they met him.

Nearly 200 people came to the street where Cochran was shot on April 8. The outpouring of love is the only thing keeping his grandmother, Kim Carroll, upright, she said.

"I prayed and prayed that this would be big if we could show this community how much he was loved," Carroll told the crowd. "He still didn't deserve this. There should have been an adult there to see that he was in crisis and help."

The Spokane County Sheriff's Office said in a news release last week that Cochran was in the street, making statements of self-harm, when he stood in front of a car with three people inside. The driver, who was armed, stopped.

Cochran was reportedly saying he wanted to go "be with his mom," who died two years prior from a severe form of leukemia. Cochran was the one who found her body, his grandmother has said.

In the last year, he exhibited no signs of struggling with mental health, Carroll told The Spokesman-Review. He wasn't "crazy" or "aggressive," she maintains - just a regular, fun-loving teenager.

The sheriff's office said Cochran "entered" the passenger side of the car until the driver was able to get him to exit. The news release stated that "the confrontation escalated, which led to the driver shooting the juvenile male."

The sheriff's office did not mention in the release that the driver got out of the car and met Cochran around the other side, as Cpl. Mark Gregory told The Spokesman-Review later. Cochran was shot just before 8:10 p.m. and pronounced dead at the scene.

Cochran's friend, who was with him at the time of his death, was uninjured. Carroll said the friend had begged the driver not to shoot.

The sheriff's office has declined to release any more information about the incident due to the ongoing investigation and declined to offer an update on the incident as of Thursday afternoon. The driver has not been charged.

Carroll spent her time at the vigil hugging her grandson's friends and making jokes about Cochran's silly personality to lighten the mood. The kids giggled through tears and hugged her back.

Guy Fox, a 17-year-old Lewis and Clark student who has known Cochran for seven years, met him playing video games. The two became fast friends.

"The thing about Carter is, he always, every time I saw him, had this huge smile on his face. Every time I looked at him, he could always cheer me up," Fox said. "That's what I always loved about him."

When Fox heard his friend had died, he almost didn't believe it.

"I was mostly shocked. It's sore. It was kind of sore, because I have also lost people in the past," he said. "This felt like reopening a wound."

As more people flooded the street, the sheriff's office arrived around 8 p.m. to divert traffic. Screams from a man outside the crowd telling attendees to "get out of the road" didn't deter them. The kids still huddled around the sidewalk, telling stories of their friend.

"He was always, from the start, making sure you're good. He was always cracking jokes when jokes needed to be cracked, and even when they should not have been cracked," said 18-year-old Solomon Giangreco as he laughed. "He was always making us laugh, making a good time for everybody around him. He just loved everybody, and he was such a kind guy."

Carroll pulled her pastor, Danny Green, to the forefront of the crowd. She gestured to her grandson's photo on the sidewalk.

"Show them who he was, Danny," she said.

Green began by saying Cochran should still be here. But because he is with his mother and the Lord, he is in a better place, he said.

"I just want to lift up all these young people right here," Green said. "These amazing young people are here and understand what this is about - a great young man, an amazing life, an amazing future that was taken away too soon."

Jeff Cochran, Carter Cochran's uncle, told a brief story of his nephew when he was a child.

He suddenly left. As he walked away, he acknowledged it was too hard for him to be there.

Neighbors who heard the shots also came out of their homes for a brief period. One allowed the group to take over her lawn. Another whispered that it shouldn't have happened.

One neighbor farther down the street began talking to a woman with a candle. He told her as she walked away, "I am sorry you have to be here."

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