New York high school team plays final basketball game in memory of Aamir Griffin

A Queens high school basketball team that plays a game each year in honor of a prominent player who was shot dead in 2019 hosted the memorial competition for the final time on Saturday, with the late teen’s father dressing up as his son in what the family said was the final memorial competition for the boy.

Aamir Griffin was set to play on the Bayside School varsity team before being shot to death on October 26, 2019. I was 14 years old.

“He didn’t even get the chance to do all the great things that were coming his way. He was going to be someone great,” the teen’s mother, Shanequa Griffin, 42, told The Post.

The annual memorial showdown has been held each of the past five years between judges from Griffin’s Benjamin N. Cardozo High School and rotating opponents.

“I haven’t been able to grieve properly, so I feel like this should be my last funeral, so I can grieve myself as a mother,” she added, explaining the decision to close the annual memorial games.

On Saturday, as judges faced the NYPD Blue Chips at Baisley Park Houses in southern Jamaica, where Griffin was killed, the teenager’s father, Warnell Wells, 42, stepped in to play in honor of his son while wearing a Cardozo #2 jersey. just like his son’s.

Griffin would have graduated in June and would already be attending college, “hopefully in the future.” basketball scholarship”said Cardozo coach Ron Naclerio, who organized the memorial games with NYPD Det. Tanya Duhaney.

Griffin’s killer, alleged Money World street gang member Sean Brown, opened fire on the teen while he was playing basketball after he mistook him for a rival gang member, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz’s office previously said.

Brown fled to Los Angeles before being arrested there by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and extradited back to the Big Apple in 2021.

In April, Brown was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy and weapons charges in connection with the fatal shooting.