Devan Bracci-Selvey's two best friends, Brody and Mikey, stood alone in a place of honour behind a hearse Saturday, watching as pallbearers slid their slain friend's casket inside.

They'd have carried the casket if they could. But they were too small.

Bracci-Selvey, 14, died Monday after he was fatally stabbed behind Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School, where he was a student. His mother witnessed the attack.

Around 600 mourners, many wearing T-shirts that read "Stop Bullying" on the front and "R.I.P. Devan" on the back, attended the Stoney Creek United Church funeral service Saturday. Dozens more stood outside to pay their respects.

"I have three little boys in school," said Stoney Creek resident Lisa Duncan, who did not know the family. "I totally have compassion for that mother. The story is heartbreaking."

Shari-Ann Selvey has said her son was bullied relentlessly since the beginning of the school year.

"Everyone failed my son," she told reporters this week.

Police have charged a 14-year-old and an 18-year-old with first-degree murder in connection with Devan's death.

Duncan said she wanted show support for the Bracci-Selvey family and she wanted to teach her sons the importance of speaking out when they see bullying and "how to stand up for what is right."

She couldn't imagine losing a child, she said.

"I don't know if mommy would ever recover," she told her nine-year-old, Joshua, holding him tight.

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Others said their children had been victims of bullying, too.

Lorraine Pedersen's now-25-year-old son was regularly robbed of his lunch money and sometimes beaten when he was 14, she said.

She urged parents going through the same thing not to give up hope. In her son's case, the bullying stopped when a police officer stood up at an assembly at the Brantford school, asking children to come forward if they see bullying. One student bystander spoke up about her son's case. The child who tormented him was eventually expelled.

"That's what saved my son," she said of police involvement.

 

 

Andrew Haines, whose daughter attends Sir Winston Churchill, said the entire city was "devastated" by the boy's death. It is now united in grief and support for the family, he said, as evidenced by the funeral turnout.

"It was a very, very dark day when this happened," he said. "Hopefully this is the ray of sunshine."

Another show of support: 60 classic cars lining the road outside the church.

Bracci-Selvey was a car enthusiast who dreamed of being a mechanic. Classic car owners drove to the funeral from as far away as Muskoka in his honour.

His mother walked up the road with friends before the funeral, taking in the scene. She stopped to speak with a few supporters, including car enthusiast Mario Aguiar who organized for the car showing.

Selvey told him if her son was alive and if this was someone else's funeral, he wouldn't have gone in for the service.

 

 

"He would have just been looking out at all the cars and hoping for a ride," Aguiar said.

At the end of the service, a sea of mourners wearing pink for anti-bullying and purple for Bracci-Selvey — it was his favourite colour — filtered out onto the street. A woman's sobs echoed through the crowd.

Bracci-Selvey's mother, at the centre of the mourners, held her hand to her mouth and sobbed, waiting for the hearse to depart. Shari-Ann Selvey leaned into Mikey McEntee, a small kid Bracci-Selvey called Little Mikey, rubbing his arm.

As the hearse drove away, they wrapped each other in a long hug.