Hundreds mourn Australian Chris Lane shot by ‘bored’ US teens

Hundreds of mourners packed a Melbourne church on Wednesday to bid farewell to an Australian baseball player killed by two teenagers in a random Oklahoma shooting that triggered a race debate.

Chris Lane, 22, was gunned down in the small town of Duncan by a pair of “bored” black teens, aged 15 and 16, as he was out jogging on August 16, reviving debate sparked by the death of black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida last year.

Lane was in the United States on a baseball scholarship and scores of his Essendon baseball clubmates formed a guard of honour outside St Therese’s Catholic church for his funeral, where the steps overflowed with floral tributes.

Almost 1,000 people crammed into the church to pay tribute to Lane, with Father Joe Giacobbe saying in 40 years he had never “seen this church as full as it is today”.

Lane’s father Peter spoke of a young man who seized life “with both hands and ran with it”, and said his son would not have known what to make of the “fuss” over his senseless murder thousands of kilometres away from home.

“When someone as young as Chris loses their life it’s always a tragedy, but when someone’s life is lost for no purpose or reason, it makes it that much harder to accept,” he said.

“What happened to Chris is just not fair, but hanging on to it will not help.”