Friends Say Goodbye To Symbol Of Hope -- Gang Violence Claimed Aleki Keni, UW Football Player Who Had `Made It Out'

In life, Aleki Keni stood as a symbol of hope to his friends - a football hero with big plans for his future, a man who tried to lead by example in nudging his friends away from violence and gangs.

In death, Keni is a reminder that hope can be blotted out with the flick of a trigger finger.

More than 250 people gathered at a South King County funeral home yesterday to say goodbye to Keni, a 21-year-old University of Washington football player who was gunned down last week in an apparent gang incident near where he grew up in the High Point neighborhood.

His friends looked at him as the one who "made it out" of the High Point projects, said Kathy Tauiliili, who was related to him by marriage and lives near his family.

"Now the kids look at him and say, `The good ones dies young. Does that mean the bad ones live forever?' " she said.

Keni had a difficult and impoverished childhood like many of his friends, Tauiliili said. His father abandoned his family, leaving his mother to raise him and his four siblings. When Keni was a sophomore in high school, his mother died from a heart condition.

Keni had left his old neighborhood and was living with his fiancee and 2-year-old daughter near Chief Sealth High School, where he had graduated in 1990 after playing for the Metro League's all-star football team.

He attended Walla Walla Community College for a year, then transferred to the UW. This would have been his second year at the UW, where he hoped to get more playing time as an inside linebacker after joining the football team as a walk-on last year. He had a 3.5 GPA and wanted to become a high school physical-education teacher.

On weekends, Keni returned to his old neighborhood to see his family, playing basketball with friends or joining them at the late-night recreational program run by Fia Faletogo at the High Point Community Center.

"He was a role model for these kids. He pretty much stood for what was right," Faletogo said. "The kids are taking it really hard. He was someone from their community they could take pride in."

On Aug. 13, somebody jumped Keni's older brother in an apparent gang-related attack. Keni was protective of his family and went to find what had happened, Faletogo said.

A group of Samoan Americans and African Americans gathered in the 3100 block of Southwest Morgan Street, and things grew heated between the two groups.

When somebody flashed a gun, Keni and his brothers started running away. Keni's younger brother tripped, and Keni turned around to see if the gang members were following them, Faletogo said. A shot rang out, and Keni was hit in the chest.

He died later at Harborview Medical Center. Police have made no arrests.

Tauiliili said the shooting has created a lot of tension in her neighborhood, in part because of an increased police presence. Faletogo decided to close down his late-night program this weekend to avoid any gang confrontations.

Faletogo said he couldn't help thinking about how differently the police and local media treated Keni's story and another shooting that took place near Alki Beach two days later, when Sheryl Hernandez was shot while sitting on a park bench.

"The police are going door-to-door, looking for suspects, reassuring people. Nobody's doing that in High Point," he said.

Faletogo thinks the city hasn't recognized the seriousness of its gang problem.

"There's not enough being done to bring these kids together," he said. "And now I'm left with one less role model."

The family has established a trust fund for Keni's daughter at Seafirst Bank.