TOLEDO, Ohio — Irin Anderson died after a shooting last weekend in west Toledo. At least 100 people gathered at the Maritime Academy Friday evening, where he attended school, to honor him.
Those in attendance described him as a kind, caring person with a big smile and say he will be missed.
"He was nice to everybody; he had a heart of gold," Irin's cousin, Bernice Donly, said at the vigil outside of the academy.
Donly said Irin, 18, left a mark on people, even when he was a kid.
"Always running around trying to help other kids," she said. "He was an angel, he tried to help everybody he could. I said 'you're going to be something when you grow up, and he was.'"
Not only did he touch his family's hearts, but also the hearts of his classmates.
"This is one of the hardest losses we've taken here, especially how great Irin was as a person," said classmate Navaeh Robinson.
Robinson said she was a mentor to Irin and that the past week has been hard for her.
"That night I only got an hour of sleep before church and then it's been hard to sleep at night because that's when the thoughts come flowing through," Robinson said.
Robinson said she'll never forget the way Irin would brighten up a room.
He even touched the people he met at Kroger, where he bagged groceries. Audrey Ransey said that's where she met Irin.
"One day, just buying groceries, he stuck up a conversation and it became a relationship," she said.
He soon started to call her his "store mom." Ransey said she was at the Kroger where he worked when she got a call getting the news about the shooting.
"I was heartbroken," she said. "As I walked around Kroger, it was so somber."
Family and friends said Irin was trying to get a design business started with people wearing shirts at the vigil showing with one of his creations.
"I'm just glad that we can honor that," Robinson said.
Irin is the second Maritime Academy student to be killed in the past year, following Josiah Gill in November of last year.
The police are still trying to find who's responsible for Irin's death. If you know anything, you can call or text the Crime Stoppers hotline at 419-255-1111.