ST. LOUIS • Eleven days after Keith Galloway smiled for a photograph alongside the mayor during a crime prevention celebration, he was shot to death in a robbery near the barbecue stand he runs.
Galloway, 42, had just returned from a funeral for his friend’s father to tend to his barbecue stand at Page Boulevard and Bayard Avenue Saturday evening when his daughter told him someone was trying to break into his cousin’s car.
The car was where Galloway had left the money made at his Five Father’s Barbecue stand while at the funeral, said his cousin, Crystal Lampkin.
The thief ran toward a stretch of vacant run-down homes behind the barbecue stand in the 4800 block of Page Avenue as Galloway gave chase. Lampkin said she then heard three gunshots and her cousin yelling.
She and Galloway’s son and daughter ran toward the sound and found Galloway lying in a gangway in the 1300 block of Bayard. Galloway, whose family and friends called him Kee-Lo, was pronounced dead at the scene from a gunshot wound to the chest.
There was a second man involved in the robbery who a witness told police was seen running from the scene shortly after the shots rang out. Galloway’s family believes the men bought barbecue from the stand earlier in the day and were watching them to learn where they kept the money.
The victim’s mother, Shelia Thompson, identified the body of her son — the oldest of her seven children.
“If he had caught up to that man, I don’t think he would have harmed him,” Thompson said. “I think he would have asked, ‘Why are you doing this to me? I can help you.’
“He believed in nonviolence and lost his life to violence.”
Galloway’s family gathered at the site of his barbecue stand on Monday. He had sold food out of a mobile trailer for the past five years. Relatives recalled how proud he was to stand with Mayor Lyda Krewson during the National Night Out celebration Aug. 1.
“He told her how every time he would come up to barbecue with his family and his kids, he would have to pick up needles and asked if she could do something about that,” Thompson said.
Krewson’s office issued a statement: “I’m sad. I just met Mr. Galloway on National Night Out, a day about building better community relationships. He was out there barbecuing with his family and friends. My heart goes out to them.”
The picture he took with Krewson and Maj. Michael Caruso is now the main image on a GoFundMe page his cousin, Chrishawnda Lampkin, started for his funeral expenses.
“Some people are just murdered because they’re out there selling drugs, not taking care of their families and people think, ‘They’re just a waste of flesh,’” Lampkin said. “But that wasn’t my cousin. He was a businessman and he took care of his family.”
There have been 123 homicides in the city this year, compared to 120 this time in 2016.
Galloway was also a newlywed, having married his longtime girlfriend, Shaunta Galloway, on July 7. He had four of his own children and was a stepfather to her two daughters.
“I told him this was forever,” his widow said as she wiped away tears. “And my forever was only 38 days.”
Galloway also ran a DJ business and was a barber. He rarely turned much profit, often giving his services to those in need. He also gave away food, cooked and cut kids’ hair at back-to-school events.
The day he died, his cousin said, she had just emptied the cash box and left only $20 inside. The would-be thief fled empty-handed.
Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 866-371-8477.
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