'A good mama' | Friends, community mourn woman shot and killed near Louisville bus stop

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A Louisville woman shot and killed near a bus stop Wednesday morning is being remembered as a good mother who was doing what she always did—caring for her child.

Friends say their friend, Redaja Williams, known as “Juicy,” was the woman shot and killed at 10th and Chestnut streets around 8 a.m., where a growing memorial now sits in her honor.

“She was innocent. She was a bystander,” said Angel Mitchell, a childhood friend who grew up with Williams. “She was a good mama, she was a good friend, she was a good person all around. She was just so sweet.”

Mitchell said that's exactly what Juicy was doing she got caught in the gunfire—being a good mother.

The loss hits especially hard for Mitchell, who is also a survivor of gun violence. Four months ago, she was injured in a shooting she said "split my pancreas and my kidney in half."

“Tell me to keep my head up, that I’m strong and I’m gonna make it,” Mitchell said, recalling how Juicy would check in on her recovery.

Mitchell said she often thinks about what would have happened to her own daughter if she hadn’t survived.

“How would it have been if I would’ve passed away and my daughter didn’t have a mother," she asked. "I would’ve felt so bad knowing that my child’s wondering, ‘Where’s mommy? Is mommy coming back?’”

The shooting Wednesday morning wasn't the first in that area over the past week. Gunshots rang out at the bus stop on Aug.7, the first day back to class for Jefferson County Public Schools. Though no one was hurt, two 15-year-olds have been arrested in connection to that shooting

“It could’ve been me or any other mother,” said Mikiel Tenon, who witnessed the shooting. “It’s very heartbreaking. ...Her mother loved her very much for her mother to be out here walking her. It’s sad.”

A 10-year-old boy who knew Williams described her as both strict and loving.

“She would protect her. ... She would play with her,” the boy said about how Williams treated her children.

The child did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation.

“I’m scared to walk around ‘cause of all the shootings,” he said.

Balloons and a teddy bear now sit at the bus stop, marking the place where a mother should have been waiting to greet her daughter after school.

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