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       When Tahirah Taylor received a call from a friend to check on T-Jai “TJ” Farmer, she said she was confused at first, but sadness and shock soon overtook her confusion.

       Shock that she had lost her friend, 42-year-old Farmer, who was fatally shot Oct. 9 in a parking lot in Laurel while she sat in her car outside the apartment complex where she lived.

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       “It’s still surreal. I don’t think it’s really going to be real until I see her in that casket,” Taylor said at a vigil Thursday night. “I’m just trying to stay strong as much as possible for her mother. It’s a lot. T-Jai would give you the shirt off of her back.”

       Taylor was one of more than 300 people that gathered on the basketball court at the Langdon Park Community Center in Northeast Washington to celebrate “a life well lived, but taken too soon,” according to a flier for the vigil. Most people were dressed in blue, including some in sweatshirts bearing Farmer’s image.

       Friends and family huddled together in the chilly night, bonded over laughter and tears, and held candles and blue balloons while they shared memories of Farmer.

       “It’s wonderfully overwhelming, the support and love that I have been receiving,” said Alma Farmer, T-Jai’s mother, adding that it was “a pleasure and honor to be her mother.”

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       Laurel police said in a statement that a lone gunman ambushed Farmer. A police spokeswoman said in an email that the incident is the only shooting death in Laurel so far this year.

       Thankful Baptist Church pastor Robert H. Alston Jr., whose mother was fatally shot in D.C. in 2020, called the number of deaths in the area “spiritual warfare” and said that communities need to come together before tragedies happen, not after.

       “When mom goes home and this vigil is over, where will the village be then? When will we come together to tell society that enough is enough?” Alston said to the crowd. “Tonight is love, but after Thursday, what will it be? These types of things should not happen.”

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       Officer Steven Kibbey of the Laurel Police Department said at the vigil that solving Farmer’s killing is all he has worked on and asked for people to come forward with any information.

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       “I can tell T-Jai was very loved, and I need you to use that love and help us with this case,” Kibbey said. “T-Jai didn’t deserve this.”

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       Close friends of Farmer said she worked alongside other community activists in the Langdon Park area to educate the neighborhood’s youth and keep them away from the violence of the city.

       “She was saving our boys when she left this rec center, we lost them all to gun violence. That girl had an impact on this community,” said Dana McDaniel, a Langdon Park resident. “While she was here, my children were alive. On behalf of the entire Langdon Park community, T-Jai, we love you and we thank you. Job well done.”

       Farmer previously worked for the D.C. government as a site manager with the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) and as management analyst for the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE).

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       In an emailed statement, Christina Grant, OSSE’s state superintendent of education, praised Farmer as a dedicated D.C. government employee of more than 15 years who left a positive impact on everyone that she met.

       “Ms. Farmer took great pride in her job and was always willing to help her team. Her kind-hearted presence and dedication to serving the children of Washington, DC will be greatly missed,” Grant wrote in the statement.

       Leroy Taylor had known Farmer for 33 years, having been friends with her during their years at Bunker Hill Elementary School, Woodrow Wilson High School (now named Jackson-Reed High School) and Virginia State University.

       “This is the reunion that was needed, but nobody truly wanted, and I’m glad that everybody came out and is showing their love for this wonderful individual,” Taylor said at the vigil, before turning his comments to speak to Farmer directly. “See you again, soon. I know it’s not school, but we’ll run into each other again.”

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