• ThuyGiang
• November 3, 2026

In the weeks before his dєatᩚh Javits Frimpong kept a personal journal that his family later shared with reporters. The pages show a shy teenager writing about idenтιтy, family, faith, and education after moving from Ghana. He wrote, “I am a shy person. I am doing good on my journey and figuring out who I am.” Another entry said that “when you start to win, people start to hate you and they try to bring you down,” while describing his family as the people who would help when no one else would and warning himself not to ᴀssociate with “bad kids.” He compared schools, writing that in Ghana teachers sometimes used physical punishment that created fear, whereas his new school in the Bronx felt better. He wrote that he wanted to go far with education because “you will earn money when you are being educated,” and he dreamed of becoming a physician.

Family members said he had set aside a small amount of cash in his room to help friends in Ghana with their schooling. Sister Millicent Frimpong described him as intelligent, caring, and someone who loved people. The journal also mentioned the importance of worshiping God and celebrating Christmas. These writings became public after the śh́óóting, revealing a boy who had arrived exactly one year earlier full of hope, leaving his mother, Doris Adu Gyamfi, behind in Ghana. Thomas Frimpong has said his son was his only child living with him in New York.

The diary entries have circulated widely among Ghanaian communities and in New York media, adding a personal layer to the public coverage. They portray a quiet, ambitious student who viewed education as the path to a better life and who trusted his family above everything else. The contrast between the hopeful words in the journal and the sudden violence on the sidewalk has struck many readers.

Police continue investigating the śh́óóting while the family mourns a son whose private writings spoke of determination and graтιтude for the opportunity he believed America offered. The journal remains one of the few direct windows into the life he was trying to build.