Saturday vigil honors Barway Collins

A week after the body of Barway Collins was found in the Mississippi River off North Mississippi Regional Park in Brooklyn Center, scores attended the first of multiple weekend vigils Saturday afternoon. The 90-minute service featured more than a dozen speakers at a lectern set up near the parking lot of Cedarwood Apartments, where the Collins family lives.

Yamah Collins, the boy's stepmother, clutched a crumpled program and sat quietly near the lectern alongside two of her young sons.

Notably absent Saturday was Pierre Collins, Barway's father. Collins was arrested and charged last week with second-degree murder in connection with his son's death. Collins is still in jail on $2 million bail as he awaits trial and authorities have said a grand jury will be asked to look at evidence for a possible first-degree murder indictment.

Pastor Harding Smith, who has served as a spokesman for the family, said Barway's funeral would be held at Shiloh Temple in north Minneapolis on a date yet to be announced, and a wake would also occur at a yet-to-be-named Liberian church.

Garry Dye, a local resident, meanwhile volunteered to donate a local burial plot should Barway's family need it. Organizers worked to raise funds to cover the costs of Barway's funeral and to pay for Barway's biological mother to travel from Liberia to Minnesota for the service.

Crystal police were among those in attendance Saturday, and several local Liberian community leaders thanked the department for their efforts.

"We as a community are supposed to be a protector of our children," Smith shouted. "There's a special place in hell for whoever did this gruesome act. There will be hell to pay."

A silent vigil followed elsewhere at the apartment complex, where 500 balloons were released at 4:26 p.m., the time Barway got off his school bus on the last day he was seen alive. Another vigil is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday in the park near where Barway's body was found.

Stephen Montemayor • 952-746-3282