Slain Girl Grieved by Fellow Students

A 17-year-old Grossmont High School senior was shot to death two weeks before her graduation as she was leaving the La Mesa photography studio where she worked, police said Thursday.

Tameka Henderson helped lock up the Olan Mills Studio in the 4200 block of Palm Avenue about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday and was in her parked car when a man wearing a ski mask walked up to the driver’s side and fired at least two shots through the window, said Lt. Alan Lanning of the La Mesa Police Department. Tameka was hit in the head and upper body, Lanning said.

She was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Witnesses told police that the gunman ran two blocks and cut across to a clearing in a small park, where a car and driver were waiting. Witnesses described the car as a small, dark station wagon or square-backed compact, Lanning said.

Relatives and friends said Tameka, the daughter of a minister, had been harassed by her ex-boyfriend, who was distraught since their breakup in April. Police interviewed the former Clairemont High School student, who dated Tameka for two years. No arrest was made, Lanning said. The identity of the 19-year-old community college student was not released.

“They did not come up with enough information that they thought would justify an arrest,” Lanning said.

Dozens of Grossmont students skipped classes Thursday and met at the shooting scene to remember their friend.

If students couldn’t see it in Tameka’s appearance--5-foot-7 1/2, rakishly coiffed hair and hoops that dangled from her ears and swung when she laughed, which was often--Tameka told them straight up: She was different.

Tameka was smarter, bolder, more outspoken than most students, said classmate Talley Bercovitz. Her 3.5 grade-point average seemed to come effortlessly, as did her many friendships.

Tameka was voted--hands-down--senior class clown, Talley said. Although they shared no classes, each day they spent hours together, enjoying pranks symptomatic of spring “senioritis.”

Tameka, who lived with her family in El Cajon, was given detention all day Wednesday for repeated tardiness, said Laura Head, one of Tameka’s closest friends. Her friends missed Tameka’s booming voice and soothing wit. The few who saw her during a short midday break barely had time to say hello, let alone a final farewell, Laura said.

It wasn’t until Thursday morning that Tameka’s friends heard the news, first on radio, then during frantic phone calls.

“The first call I got, I just hung up,” Laura said. “I thought it was some sort of cruel joke.”

When it came to making others laugh, Tameka had them busting up in the middle of school assemblies, during lunch or class, said Krista Gonzales, who met Tameka when they entered Grossmont High in the 10th grade. Tameka had a way of pointing out students’ peculiarities, flaunting her own, then leading those around her to revel in the differences, friends said.

Friends said Tameka was outspoken about being African-American. In the same breath, she would extol the accomplishments of African-American leaders, expound on the history of blacks, then emphasize the need for students of all ethnic backgrounds to learn about each other. She was president of the Black Student Union and, as a sophomore, helped found Grossmont’s first student Human Relations Council.

Tameka was bound for her mother’s alma mater, Southern University, an all-black college in Baton Rouge, La., that offered her a scholarship. Tameka, a speech team star, was going to study communication. She also already knew what sorority she would rush, Laura said.

In October, she organized a workshop at her father’s church, Highland Park Southern Baptist Church in Paradise Hills, Grossmont Principal Stephen Larivee said. For a day, more than 100 students and faculty engaged in role-playing, exchanged ethnic identities and learned a little bit about their differences.

“Youth believes there’s plenty of time, but you don’t know when you are going to go,” said her father, the Rev. Andre Henderson. “She was a brilliant leader. She’ll live even though she’s dead.”