Father of man killed at his son’s funeral in Davenport says the shooting was accidental, not murder

Jamie Shorter sobbed as he held his cellphone and tried to talk about the horror he saw on the first day of August.

He tried to explain how his son Jeramie Shorter was killed at the funeral of Jeramie's 8-year-old son.

'I had to help bury my 8-year-old grandbaby. That's a horrible thing to begin with,” Jamie said. And on Thursday, he buried the boy's father.

'I don't know how we are going to get through this.,” Jamie Shorter said in an interview last week.

'But I do have one thing to say: The world is wrong. The world is wrong about what happened and the world is wrong about my son, Jeramie.”

On the morning of Aug. 1, the Shorter family gathered in Davenport for the funeral of Jermier Leon Shorter. According to Jamie, the 8-year-old boy battled cancer his entire life.

Jermier was born May 15, 2012, to Kylea Crawford and Jeramie Shorter in Davenport, according to his obituary.

About 11:30 a.m., the Scott County Emergency Communication Center started receiving 911 calls about a disturbance at the funeral home. When Davenport police and first responders arrived, they found Jeramie with gunshot wounds.

Police later said the suspect, Nuemonei Laster, 24, was captured after a car chase. He faces charges of first-degree murder, felon in possession of a firearm, eluding, and interference with official acts with a weapon.

Jamie explained what happened that morning.

'Nuemonei (Laster) and my son are not kin,” Jamie said. 'Some people have been saying that. Nuemonei had a child with the sister of one of the mothers of one of my son's children.

'Nuemonei did not come to that funeral to kill my son. He got into an argument with someone else, and my son had come out of the funeral home to speak with him.”

Jamie said he saw Laster had a gun and tried to grab him.

'I grabbed Nuemonei, and that gun went off. Nuemonei did not intend to kill my son. One shot hit my son and killed him.

'There's a lot of rumors going around about how and why my son was killed. I know the truth. I was there.”

Jamie said Laster's children were at Jermier's funeral.

'It's a horror, what those children experienced that day,” Jamie said. 'No one wins from this. Everyone loses. I lost a son. Nuemonei's people are going to lose him. Lives lost for nothing, for what was really a mistake.”

Jamie said he's struggled with how to tell the story of what he says happened that Saturday morning.

Laster is slated to be arraigned Sept. 10 after 7th District Court Judge Mark Lawson granted a continuance last week. In court documents, the county attorney has not offered any reason Laster was at the funeral home Aug. 1 or why Jeramie was shot.