A candlelight vigil will be held Saturday to remember Alonna Gallon, the 24-year-old Richmond woman fatally shot last week by her son’s father, at the Toyota of Berkeley Certified Service Center in Albany, where she was killed.
The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Thursday identified Gallon as the woman killed and 24-year-old Lamar Walker of Vacaville as her killer.
Gallon’s mother, Yuvonda Gallon, has set up a GoFundMe account for her 7-year-old grandson to pay for college, therapy and other programs.
Alonna Gallon had begun “to distance herself from” Walker because of Walker’s “reckless behaviors,” Yuvonda Gallon wrote on the GoFundMe page.
“Alonna tried to the best of her abilities to create a healthy co-parenting relationship with King’s father but it unfortunately didn’t stop him from brutally taking her life,” Yuvonda Gallon wrote.
Witnesses first started calling 911 at 11:14 a.m. on Sept. 21 to report a shooting, Berkeley police said last week.
Berkeley police officers, who were the first to arrive, evacuated the area, entered the building through a first-floor door and began looking for victims, according to a statement Thursday evening from Sheriff’s Lt. Tya Modeste. When the officers reached the second floor, they found Walker crouching near a desk and aiming a revolver at them.
Five officers fired at Walker, with several rounds hitting him, Modeste said. The officers found Gallon dead on the floor near Walker with a gunshot wound to her head.
Walker “may have attempted suicide before the arrival of law enforcement, but he was unsuccessful in his attempt,” Modeste wrote. It was the officers’ gunshots that killed him, she said.
“Alonna Gallon’s death was a senseless act of violence,” Modeste wrote. “Our hearts go out to Ms. Gallon’s son and her family.”
Yuvonda Gallon described her daughter as “an incredibly kind, caring, shy and goofy young lady who had a lot of love to give and more life to live.”
“Alonna was the kind of mother who always put (her son’s) needs before her own and dreamed of a life where she’d send her son off to college and support him through his transitioning stages of life,” her mother wrote.
The vigil is scheduled for 6 p.m. outside the dealership where Gallon worked at 1025 Eastshore Highway.
