Lit­tle did An­to­nio Gre­go­ry Jack know that as he stepped in­to the cor­ri­dor of his apart­ment at Phase I, Pow­der Mag­a­zine, Co­corite, on May 4 to smoke, it would be his last act.

He was one of four peo­ple that were killed when gun­men opened fire on res­i­dents at the hous­ing com­plex, in a mass shoot­ing which has since been at­trib­uted to a fight for turf be­tween war­ring gangs in the area.

Ac­cord­ing to sur­vivor Mylesy James, “He was sim­ply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Jack was the third vic­tim to be laid to rest fol­low­ing a fu­ner­al ser­vice at St An­tho­ny’s RC Church, Pe­tit Val­ley.

Fight­ing back tears as she de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy yes­ter­day, Jack’s sis­ter JJ de­scribed him as, “Very hard-work­ing, fun­ny, and loved by every­one.”

Claim­ing he loved chil­dren, she re­called a child­hood mem­o­ry when their moth­er would have dis­ci­plined “Pharaoh” as she called him, and his twin - af­ter she was found ly­ing on the ground as a ba­by.

In­di­cat­ing Jack was a “limer,” she said, “If Pharaoh see you in the road, he would nev­er pass you straight. He greets every­one with a smile.”

Strug­gling to hold on to her com­po­sure as she bent her head and swal­lowed sev­er­al times, JJ told the con­gre­ga­tion he had loved draw­ing and danc­ing.

“Any­thing for his fam­i­ly ... any­thing to make a dol­lar,” she said.

Sin­gling out sev­er­al per­sons whom she re­ferred to by name, JJ said, “He had good fam­i­ly and good friends.”

Thank­ing them for al­ways en­sur­ing he was safe and re­turned home in one piece, she said, “He will be sore­ly missed and will for­ev­er be in our hearts.”

Evok­ing smiles as she said he was an ex­cel­lent babysit­ter and could al­ways be count­ed on to look af­ter her daugh­ter when­ev­er she had to go out, JJ sim­ply said, “Thank you my broth­er.”

Of­fi­ci­at­ing over the solemn send-off, vi­su­al­ly-im­paired Fa­ther Mikkel Tre­strail sought to ar­tic­u­late the ques­tions by those mourn­ing the loss of the four vic­tims as he asked, “God, how were you present in the midst of this sit­u­a­tion?”

He went on, “Be­cause God, if you are with me and you are with us, then harm should not come our way.”

Ad­mit­ting this was one of the strug­gles Chris­tians grap­pled with as the ra­tio­nale that they love and serve God meant they should not ex­pe­ri­ence such hard­ship and tor­ment, Tre­strail said Jack’s fam­i­ly and friends were still un­able to un­der­stand or ac­cept the loss.

Of­fer­ing com­fort to those present, he urged, “We find our strength in a God who is hurt­ing along with us over this man’s death, and the death of all those who suf­fer loss in this coun­try.”

He said de­spite the be­lief that some per­sons de­serve what is met­ed out to them, they are some­one’s loved one.

“No death is ever jus­ti­fied, no death is ever right and God weeps over the loss of every sin­gle one of his chil­dren,” Tre­s­tri­al ad­vised.

He said this sto­ry had not end­ed and as such, those left to mourn should take com­fort in God and be­lieve it will get bet­ter.

Tre­strail’s state­ment that “Mr Jack was re­al­ly a man with a heart of gold,” drew nods and smiles, as he re­mem­bered the fa­mous fry-bake, dou­bles and pies Jack had been known for.

The priest im­plored peo­ple not to let this sit­u­a­tion make them bit­ter and close off their hearts to love and hope.

Turn­ing up to pay his re­spects, mu­si­cian and en­ter­tain­er Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller told Guardian Me­dia, “We need to stop this cy­cle.”

Hurt­ing over the loss of the fam­i­ly friend and the cir­cum­stances un­der which he was killed, he con­tin­ued, “Jack is love and light.”

“He touched our lives, his fam­i­ly’s lives and was some­body very spe­cial to us ... and to feel this loss to­day, it is very heart-break­ing.”

Di­ef­fen­thaller re­it­er­at­ed it was time to stop the cy­cle, adding, “We need to stop be­ing pawns and start stand­ing up for love, stand­ing up for peace.”