Shaliqua Watson was making a way for herself. She had just moved into a new home, purchased her first car and begun understanding the craft of interior decorating. Watson was settling into adulthood, her cousin Danielle Nelson said.
Then on a Saturday afternoon came news that the 21-year-old Baltimore mother had been gunned down. Now the shaken family is wrestling with the death of a young mother her family affectionately called “Li Li.”
She left behind a 2-year-old daughter.
“She hated bullies or bullying and would stand up and fight for you. She was our Li Li,” Nelson said, recalling her. “She was a provider and was determined to get out of the projects and have a better life for her daughter. She was taken away from us far too soon. Liqua will truly be missed by all who knew and loved her.”
Watson graduated from Francis M. Wood High School and had plans to become a party planner. In her spare time she worked out of her home as a hair stylist.
Watson’s death came during another Ceasefire Weekend, an ongoing effort by Baltimore CeaseFire365 and its leader Erricka Bridgeford to end Baltimore’s violence and comfort families of victims.
More than 200 people have been killed so far this year, slightly off last year’s record pace.
Watson was shot Saturday afternoon in the rear of the 800 block of Vine St., just west of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the Poppleton neighborhood.
Western District officers heard gunfire around 12:52 p.m. and began canvassing the area for potential victims, suspects and witnesses. They eventually discovered Watson suffering from gunshot wounds. She died an an area hospital, according to police.
Watson is one of 27 homicide victims who were women in Baltimore City this year. On Tuesday, two women were shot in South Baltimore’s Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood. One of them, 28, died.
Watson’s family has talked about setting up a balloon release a month from now on what would have been her 22nd birthday. Until then, the family continues to navigate through mourning during an already stressful pandemic that has left families of homicide victims with limited options to celebrate the lives of loved ones.
There have been 206 homicides in Baltimore so far this year.
