It was an emotional gathering filled with balloons, prayer and memories.

A time to honor and remember six-year-old Aniya Allen, who passed away three years ago Saturday.

“Anger, hurt,” declared KG Wilson, a longtime peace activist and Aniya’s grandfather. “It’s unbelievable that somebody could do something like this and watch a community hurt, watch a family hurt.”

Each year on May 18, friends and family of Aniya come to her gravesite at Lakewood Cemetery to mourn the loss of a life taken too soon — and to keep hope alive that the little girl’s killer will be found.   

“She was so sweet, she loved everyone,” says LaTonya Allen, Aniya’s grandmother. “She always, every time you saw her, she had a big smile on her face.”

“Nobody should have to come to a six-year-old’s grave, especially a six-year-old who was shot in the head,” Wilson says quietly. “And there’s no justice three years later.”

In May 2021, Aniya was sitting in the back of her mom’s car, heading home, eating a happy meal when someone at North 36^th and Penn Avenues began shooting.

Several rounds hit the car, and Aniya was fatally wounded.

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“We need information from folks that were there where it happened,” says Minneapolis Police Commander Richard Zimmerman. “We know that Aniya was not the intended victim. She got between the shooter and the intended victim when she was driving by with her mom.”

Authorities say the shooting happened just after 11 p.m.

Police suspect two different groups may have been shooting at each other.

“Three years ago, when Aniya was shot, I felt a visceral horror,” says Inna Valin, a documentary photographer who attended Saturday’s gathering. “It had been a two-week period where three children had been shot.”

Police are also still looking for leads in the shooting of ten-year-old LaDavionne Garrett, Junior.

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He was shot and critically injured just weeks before Aniya was killed.

Family members say he still has a bullet in his head and cannot walk or talk.

There was an arrest in the case of nine-year-old Trinity Ottoson-Smith

She was shot while playing on a trampoline on May 15, 2021.

D’pree Robinson pleaded guilty last year to the drive-by shooting that killed her.

“We’re talking about children who are completely innocent,” Valin says. “The stray bullet phenomenon, where a child is literally sitting in their car eating a happy meal, like the most innocent thing that could possibly be, and out of nowhere… people are fighting with guns.”

There is a saying that time heals.

But Aniya’s family says even after three years, the emotions are still raw.

They hope the shooter turns himself in.

“At first, I was afraid it was an accident, now I’m saying you a killer because you know you did it now,” Allen says. “We need justice for Aniya. We do not want this to be swept under the rug or anything like that.”

At the end of the gathering, Wilson led a balloon release to honor Aniya — blue and white balloons rising into the sky.

Family and friends of a little girl taken too soon.

Now, they are hoping for answers.

“I’m angry, every day I’ve been angry since it happened,” Wilson says. “She was just sweet, you know? An angel that was here for just a little while. And our family is still torn apart about that.”

If you have any information about LaDavionne or Aniya’s cases, you can reach out to Crime Stoppers of Minnesota at 800-222-8477 or by submitting an anonymous tip online.