TAMPA, Fla. – A grieving mother led to cry for justice at a vigil on Tuesday, releasing balloons and wanting someone to be held responsible for the shooting death of her 14-year-old daughter Nilexia Alexander. 

A runaway from Temple Terrace, Alexander's body was found Friday around 4:00 a.m. in the 100 block of Floribraska Avenue. Pastor Elvis Piggott says this tragedy speaks to what he calls a pandemic of gun violence.

“I’m doing home-going services for so many young people that are nowhere near 30,”. Piggott said, “And the biggest thing is, is that it is very known that the parents want their children to bury them and we're just in days now that parents are burying their children.”

Kenisha Williams-Hall was Alexander's fifth grade teacher.

“This is like personal,”, she said. “Like, I’m mad, but I’m also hurt, but I’m mad.” She said she's having a hard time making sense of this. 

“This is not easy. We love on our children at school. They’re not just students, they’re our babies. And to know that someone so innocent, so pure, so sweet Lexi was.To know that she was taken away senselessly, violently in this nature, it hurts.” But like any good teacher, she say something to be learned from this. 

“The lesson in this that it can always happen to you,” Williams-Hall said. “Don’t think that this is too far away.  Sooner or later this could be knocking at your door. The lesson in is that we’ve got to do something immediately. That we just can’t keep putting this off.”

If you have any information that could help solve this case, you’re asked to contact Tampa Police.