Mourners urged to take charge of children

A pastor urged mourners at a Mattapan church yesterday to take charge of their children so that the funeral of 25-year-old Damien N. Lackland, whose naked body was found inside Mount Hope Cemetery, is the last in which a family laments a life lost to gun violence.

"It's time for us to take our children while they are alive," Pastor Willard Smith said to a full congregation attending the noontime service at Morning Star Baptist Church. "As long as you allow them to tell you what to do, we're going to keep coming here over and over. Things are not going to change."

Lackland, Boston's fourth homicide victim this year, was a jokester who doted on his two young children and added hot sauce to just about every meal, family and friends said during the service. The Dorchester man loved Nike sneakers and aspired to become part owner of the company, but was working to become a personal trainer in the meantime, they said.

No arrests had been made by late yesterday in his death, caused by a gunshot wound. Police believe that Lackland was killed elsewhere before his body was left in the Mattapan cemetery Feb. 7 . Yesterday, a family member asked people with information to come forward.

"Let's stop the madness," said 44-year-old Kevin Quarles of Dorchester. "Only a coward would have done what they did to my nephew."

Lackland's cousin, Rena Blige, urged the congregation to trust in God, who she said brought the family through when, in 1991, police shot and killed the victim's uncle, Nathaniel Lackland, after he allegedly wielded a knife in a mugging in Jamaica Plain.

Diana Quarles, 43, who raised Damien Lackland, said people presume to know why he was killed, but she would not speculate on a motive.

"Damien was my heart," she said. "I just want to lay him to rest."

April Simpson can be reached at asimpson@globe.com