6-year-old Jeffrey Laney took to his mother's Facebook page last week to ask people to stop the violence.
“People need to stop killing each other because this is just making me feel bad,” Jeffrey explains in the video.
The video has now gone viral and has over 123,000 views as of Tuesday morning, many people sympathizing with the 6-year-old.
His mom, Leanndra Cheatham told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that his speech sparked from the death of her cousin, Taylor Simpson, 17, who was killed in a drive-by shooting last month in University City, which took a toll on her, and Jeffrey saw her struggling to deal with the loss. Having taken videos of her son before, she decided to do it again. This time he told us that the murders have to stop.
“I don’t want nothing to happen to all my family, and I’m really serious because I’m really scared to die and I’m really scared for my family to die,” the kindergartner proclaims.
Cheatham says she began to get teary eyed listening to her son. Not wanting everyone to hear her breakdown, she cut the video short. “I was hurt but proud,” she admits.
Cheatham, 28, works at the St. Louis Justice Center, taking inventory of prisoner possessions and other data entry. “I remind him every day that that is the one place he don’t want to be and that there are a lot of bad people out there,” she said.
Cheatham posted the video of her son on Saturday night writing “I can’t do nothing but look at him and hurt because he feels that way!! God he is supposed to be enjoying this stage.”
Despite the sadness of his plea, the 6-year-old is hopeful. “God is my weapon,” he says ending the video. “God is going to make sure I’m safe.”
Listen to the kids, y'all.