Friends, family, neighbors bid farewell to a 12-year-old boy shot to death last week in a hail of police gunfire as officers tried to save the boy's life.
Several hundred mourners gathered at a memorial service Sunday for Nathan McMurry Thomas, who was shot as police tried to free him from a knife-wielding intruder who broke into his northeast Portland home last Thursday.The intruder, 20-year-old Bryan French, threatened to kill Nathan and held a butcher knife to his throat.
Police said they thought French was about to make good on his threat when they opened fire, hoping to prevent French from killing Nathan. But two of their shots hit Nathan in the head. He died several hours later at Emanuel Hospital & Health Center.
Police said 14 shots hit French, who died at the scene.
Several police officers, still shaken by the shooting, attended the memorial at All Saints Roman Catholic Church in the Laurelhurst neighborhood of northeast Portland.
Nathan, who had suffered from Hodgkin's disease, was remembered in eulogies as a serious, thoughtful young man who would not want to be remembered as a victim. Nathan's 8-year-old brother, Benjamin, sat with his parents and dabbed his eyes with a white handkerchief.
"He chose not to be a victim," said H. Laron Hall, senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church and a friend of the Thomas family. "He believed in himself. Nathan was a winner."
"The family was visited with a pain so deep that time can only blunt it, not erase it. None of us shall ever be the same again. This family is scarred, but not broken. That is a wonder."
Tom Cary, a spokesman for Nathan's family, said, "All of the family is together and that helps a lot. But I still think its partly a state of shock that they're surviving through this."
Nathan loved sports, especially soccer, and he enjoyed collecting baseball cards. He also enjoyed reading, camping, backpacking, and was especially intrigued by the Delicate Arch in Utah's Arches National Park.
Born Dec. 19, 1979, in Portland, Nathan moved with his family to Salt Lake City in 1981. The family returned to Portland last August.