Brandon Jackson, the teen who was the apparent victim of a drive-by shooting in Altadena Saturday night, was "an awesome kid … he motivated kids his own age, he motivated even adults. He was one of those kids who wanted to see people do well."
That's the opinion of Astonn Penman, lead program coordinator for Mentoring and Partnership for Youth Development (MPYD) at John Muir High school, a mentoring program for young men. Jackson was one of Penman's own mentees, and said the young man overcame a lot of difficulties to blossom into leadership.
"This kid … closed out ninth grade with a 1.88 GPA, and this past semester he had a 3.2," Penman said. "This kid was an awesome football player. He had one of the biggest personalities on campus — he talked to kids, adults, security guards, everybody."
Penman said that Jackson was overcoming a bad family situation — his mother died of cancer, and his family life was abnormal and difficult. Penman said that Jackson was also close friends with Jerrill Dulaney, the teen whose May 9, 2009 Altadena murder remains unsolved.
"He was a young man who was determined to change his life," said Jacques Bolton, MPYD's executive director. "A very likable kid, focused on what he was trying to do, probably because of his background. He wanted to get out of that, get an athletic scholarship and go to college.
"He embodied what John Muir High School tries to do — take kids with troubled pasts and turn them around. He turned around."
According to Bolton, "Here's a young man who knew about gangs, and yet he was used by the principal to make a presentation to the school board — he was that charismatic. WIth all the troubles and things he was going through, he still came to school and wanted to succeed."
Jackson also took advantage of all the resources the school had available, Bolton said — not only MPYD, but D'Veal (a therapeutic counseling service offered by the school) and Outward Bound Adventures.
"He was also a part of the of [Muir's] radio show," Bolton said. "He participated in our advisory class, got a starring role in the radio show, and wrote and produced music for it." Bolton called him "a terrific artist, and he wrote music, he wrote raps — we're trying to find one now to use as a tribute to him."
"In my office, we would talk all the time," Penman said. "He was motivated to go to college … he became the leader he was supposed to be anyway."
In the wake of Jackson's death, Penman said that MPYD mentors and other support providers were around campus all day Monday. "We basically counseled kids all day long," Penman said. "If [a student] needed to talk to somebody, they could be excused from class."
Penman said Monday was a personally difficult day: "I have a mentoring program with 89 kids enrolled in it, so I have to keep a smile on my face, to make sure that, with the loss of Brandon, we need to honor his memory."
Said Bolton: "If you wanted somebody to get hurt who would touch the whole school, he was the one to do it to."
(A few edits were made and typos fixed since original publication)
