LAKELAND | More than 200 people, including dozens of mourning friends from two local middle schools, gathered Saturday for the funeral of the Lakeland teenager stabbed during a fight just a block from his home Wednesday afternoon.

Attendees overflowed to a side room and lined the back of the chapel at Lakeland Funeral Home and Memorial Gardens for the emotional bilingual service.

Kristian Marrero-Cassola, 13, had come to Florida only a year ago after his mother won passage to the United States under the Special Program for Cuban Migration, commonly known as the Cuban visa lottery.

Family friend Becky de la Cruz described him as a "sweet boy" who liked to go fishing and forewent many material things because his mother is partially disabled and the sole breadwinner.

Nevertheless, Kristian was happy here, de la Cruz said, and was learning English quickly. He first attended Crystal Lake Middle School, then this year transferred to Southwest Middle School.

Kristian wrote songs for a singing group he formed with some friends, his best friend AJ Castro, 15, recalled in his eulogy.

AJ recorded their videos to post them on MySpace.com. He placed his Crystal Lake Middle School ID badge into Kristian's open casket "to take with him."

"I'll never forget him," AJ said, wiping away tears. "He was one in a million."

Lakeland police investigators have said the fight may have been racially charged - for a month the school has been defusing tensions between black and Hispanic students. The 14-year-old suspect arrested in Kristian's stabbing, Tarrod Russell of Lakeland, is black.

But Kristian's friends offered differing theories of what may have led to the fight Wednesday afternoon.

Some said Kristian got caught up in a conflict that did not originate with him. Some months ago, two boys had an argument over a football, which developed into animosity that spread to their social groups. Others said jealousy may have played a part - Kristian was popular, especially among girls.

"All the girls loved him. He was so sexy," said Nikki, 13, who declined to give her last name.

All of them said Kristian had not been involved in a fight before; more than that, he was the one likely to intervene if he saw one happening.

De la Cruz described him as the rock of his family and said he would comfort his mother when stress overwhelmed her to tears.

"He says, 'I want you to be strong, mother,'" she said.

The small one-bedroom apartment the family shared at 830 W. Beacon Road meant that he and his 10-year-old brother, Kenny, slept on air mattresses. De la Cruz said she doesn't know what Kristian aspired to when he grew up, but she knew one thing he wanted to do.

"He say, 'I want to work hard for my mother to buy a house.'"

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