Family and friends are remembering a San Lorenzo man, who was shot and killed in Berkeley over the weekend.
“It was not an accident that he was here. But it’s just a tragedy that he left us before he was going to graduate in the spring,” said Leonard McMahon, assistant professor at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley.
Isamaeli Mataafa, 29, was one of McMahon’s students. The victim, who also went by "Eli," was an American Samoan in the master of divinity program at the Pacific School of Religion, and was on track to graduate next year.
“He was tough minded, large hearted, kind, gentle, firm and steady,” McMahon said.
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Mataafa was killed Saturday in a shooting that followed an altercation a block away from UC Berkeley’s campus. He was on a boy's night out with three other men, they were also hurt in the shooting.
“Isamaeli was never involved with the criminal element anymore. As matter of the fact, he lived in neighborhoods that he wanted to transform. He was dedicated to that. He was also dedicated to climate change,” McMahon said.
Mataafa was also a youth minister and mentor in the Samoan community in San Lorenzo.
Family and friends will hold a candlelight memorial at the community church in San Lorenzo Thursday at 7 p.m.
