At about 10 p.m. Sunday, Ajalan Carter felt like something was wrong.
She closed her eyes and struggled to fall asleep for hours, later jolting to attention as her sister barged in at about 2 a.m.
“He’s gone,” she told Carter.
“Who’s gone?”
“Robert.”
Robert Dentmond was dead, shot down by police as he stood in the middle of an apartment complex with what appeared to be a rifle.
He was Carter’s best friend. To honor his memory, Carter will host a memorial Sunday at 11 a.m. at Bartley Temple United Methodist Church, located at 1936 NE Eighth Ave.
“I think if they hear Robert’s story and mine, it will change the community greatly,” she said.
Dentmond, a 16-year-old high-school sophomore, armed himself with a BB gun and told authorities it was an assault rifle. He dialed 9-1-1 at about 10 p.m. Sunday, stating he would soon shoot himself. After he failed to follow commands, nine police and deputies opened fire.
When she first heard the news, Carter’s eyes welled as she struggled to comprehend his death. Not much changed as she stayed at home for the next two days.
At Dentmond’s former home of Majestic Oaks, the streets would normally buzz with the sound of kids on Spring Break, yet silence pervades as the community makes sense of the shooting.
“It’s hard, but pray and know that he is where he’s supposed to be now,” she said.
• • •
Saturday night, Karen Green rocked her nephew to sleep on the sofa.
A day later, three bullets tore through the sofa’s fabric. Green’s nephew wasn’t there Sunday, and she decided to sit a couple inches from her normal spot.
The bullets had torn into her wall, through the middle of her sofa and into the TV across the room. Green, 59, began to shake as tears streamed down her cheek.
“That TV could have been us. That sofa could have been us,” she said.
Hours after Dentmond died, a sheriff knocked on her door and asked if she was OK, later promising to reimburse her for the damage. They cannot, however, reimburse her peace of mind. With her doors and windows locked, Green thought she was safe.
Stuffed animals now surround a parking sign just inches from the spot Dentmond last stood. Cars and apartment buildings remain marked with bullet holes. Green said she believes police and deputies should have handled Dentmond using non-lethal alternatives.
“The poor baby — he was just reaching out for help,” she said.
• • •
Carter said she served as Dentmond’s one confidant.
Dentmond’s mother was in prison, and he never met his father, Carter said. The only male figures in his life were sports coaches at Buchholz High School, where he attended classes before enrolling at Gainesville High School, she said.
At Majestic, Dentmond lived with his sister. Carter said she met Dentmond at her 14th birthday party, and a bond later formed through shared suffering.
Self-inflicted scars on their chests served as an exterior reminder of the internal depression they both felt, she said. Dentmond even saved her from committing suicide, Carter said, and now she will share his story at Sunday morning’s memorial.
“We went through it together,” she said.
