The room was quiet. The only thing the seven people sitting around the table knew about each other was that their lives had been marked by gun violence.
That’s how it all started — seven survivors, gathering to tell their stories. They were part of the Survivor Storytelling Network — an initiative by the news organization The Trace to empower violence survivors to tell their stories in their own words.
Here, the subjects of crime coverage become the writers, and they tell their own stories of violence in Chicago, hoping to show how its reverberates far beyond its victims, affecting families, friends, communities. Why the crisis is everyone’s problem. And to shine a light on different possibilities for combatting violence.
After several meetings, the survivors came to know each other not only by their own names but also by the names of those they’ve lost.
Melinda Abdallah, whose son Jacob was shot to death in Little Village, says she’s telling her story “so no one else has to go through this.”
Juan Rendon, who writes of the loss of his childhood best friend Junior, invokes Dia de Muertos and the movie “Coco.”
“Remembering them is how we can keep them alive,” he says of Junior and those the others in the group lost.
These are their stories.
My community had no support groups for violence survivors. So I started my own.
Corniki Bornds, who lives in North Lawndale, writes that her son was killed two years after the devastating loss of a cousin in another shooting. Now, she says, “I wish he’d had a community like mine.”
By Corniki Bornds
I’ll never forget what the pastor said in a Bible class I attended two weeks after my son was shot and killed: “Gun violence won’t take you and yours out.”
I looked at the girl sitting next to me and said: “Too late. It happened.” Then, I walked out.
All my life, church has been where I go when I have a problem. This time, I knew I needed more help.
I wasn’t the only one. Two years before my son was killed, he weathered a loss of his own. I watched as he became a different kid, and people told me he needed therapy. If I knew then what I know now, maybe we could’ve gotten him the help he needed.
When it was my turn to seek help, I learned that there were no support groups for gun violence survivors in North Lawndale, one of the Chicago neighborhoods that has struggled the most with violence. I knew other families here had experienced loss, yet I had to travel to the North Side for support.
As I talked to more people in my community, it became clear that the city’s emergency services treat the wound but not the resulting mental state. Studies say that exposure to community violence is a risk factor for becoming a perpetrator or a victim of violence. It’s why I created a group for survivors in our community. It’s what I wish Fontaine had.
Fontaine loved basketball, but injuries prevented him from playing professionally. He was attending Robert Morris University in hopes of becoming a physical therapist to help other injured players.
In 2015, Fontaine’s favorite cousin, Rock, was shot outside my hair salon. It created this downward spiral. He became a totally different kid. I watched him rebel against teachers. He became combative. He came to church in a T-shirt and jeans.
But I love my pastor because he said: “He still came. Let him get up there on them drums.”
That's when people started telling me he needed therapy. So he was connected with an agency that was supposed to help, but I’m not sure they did.
Eventually, he was ready to begin his life again. He went to prom, like Rock would’ve wanted. He was accepted to college. He became more cooperative. I had my baby back … for a time.
On April 10, 2017, Fontaine went to a park to play basketball. Two people got out of a car and fired into the crowd. My son died the next day. He was 19.
Even though I had no clients, I went back to my job at the salon because I didn't want to feel the void at home. I didn’t want to keep walking past his room knowing he wouldn’t be there. I wanted to survive this.
I kept going to church, but this was the one time in my life that praying did not help me get over it.
I found Parents for Peace and Justice in Rogers Park. I tried to get other local families to join, but they didn’t want to travel so far north.
I was skeptical at first because I was the only Black person there. Some coping mechanisms might seem weird to people not used to therapy. There was a technique where you pull certain fingers to relieve pressure and stress. They told us things like, “it's OK to just scream to release the chemicals in your body.”
I didn’t necessarily understand it, but it helped, so it became a habit.
That support group helped me navigate back to my path — a different path but still a path of living.
The day after I buried my son, I attended a basketball game held in his honor. People gave their condolences and shared stories of my baby, and I spent hours comforting them.
One of the girls said: “We just had a session here! We need to do this on a regular basis.”
A week later, two more young men in our community were killed.
We began to meet regularly and talk about how we felt. After I joined Parents for Peace and Justice, I realized we all could benefit from something more formal. So I founded Help Understanding Grief, or HUG.
I asked my pastor if we could meet at church because, even though the therapy and support groups helped me understand the pain, memory loss and new health issues, my relationship with God has sustained me through these seven years without my son.
The room was packed. People talked about my baby and the other two boys who got killed. We kept meeting.
The North Side group had therapists and clinical professionals. HUG was just us.
At a recent HUG meeting, one survivor said: “Black men don’t get flowers. They only get flowers at their funerals. We need to give them flowers while they’re alive.” That’s what I hope HUG can do. I wish my son had support like this.
After my son was killed, I tried to survive by always being on the move, always doing something. Now, I take time from work. I make choices based on what I feel will make me live. I ain't trying to just survive any more.
I’m trying to get my flowers while I’m alive.
My children were killed in different neighborhoods. Only the one killed on the Gold Coast seemed to matter.
When Delphine Cherry’s daughter was shot to death on the Gold Coast, her story made the news, and her killer was sentenced. But her son’s killing in Hazel Crest “barely made the news — and we were treated like criminals.”
By Delphine Cherry
Before my children were killed, I couldn’t fall asleep until they came home. Now, I can’t sleep at all.
On Jan. 17, 1992, my daughter Tyesa was the unintended victim of a gang-involved shooting on the Gold Coast. The murderer, a 14-year-old boy, was sentenced to 50 years. Tyesa died instantly, but her story lived on in the news for months.
Because we lived in Alsip, the state’s attorney said he thought she would be white.
On Dec. 22, 2012, my son Tyler was beaten and shot in our driveway in Hazel Crest. No ambulance came. The police treated us like criminals. At the hospital, they made him wait. He died of blood loss. His murder remains unsolved.
The differences in how my kids’ shootings were handled made me think about how the systems we’re supposed to trust fail Black and Brown communities. Murders involving Black men are cleared at a much lower rate than those of other racial groups, according to an analysis of Chicago Police Department reports.
Even as I advocate for bills that could change things, I feel stuck. Knowing that no one tried to save my son, that his murder is still unsolved, haunts me.
Tyesa had just left the Chestnut Station movie theater with friends when rival gang members began shooting. Tyesa looked back for one second and was shot, detectives told me.
At the hospital, Tyesa was on a slab, fully dressed. I could feel the bullet hole in her temple. I passed out.
Tyesa was 16. She was about to graduate high school and lost her life in a majority-white neighborhood. She wanted to be a nurse. Her killer served 20 years of a 50-year sentence and was released in 2012. I kept every article written about her.
When Tyesa died, I was one month pregnant with Tyler.
Twenty years later, he was killed, too. It barely made the news. The media and the justice system treated him like just another Black boy lost to gun violence.
A year earlier, Tyler had been arrested and charged as an accessory to a robbery. A friend had asked for a ride, but Tyler didn’t know that friend had just robbed someone. Police confiscated Tyler’s phone and found his friend. Tyler was released, but I wonder if he was killed because people thought he was a snitch.
A month before his death, he was worried. I told him: “You don't ever have to worry about somebody coming in here. You know, we’re covered.”
I didn't see the danger.
He was in our driveway when someone beat and shot him.
Later, I learned that a neighbor called an ambulance, but it never came. My son ran to his friend's house, and they called 911 again. Still, no one came. So he took Tyler to the emergency room at South Suburban Hospital. Even after telling hospital staff that he’d been shot, they made him wait.
He was taken to the trauma center at Advocate Christ, but it was too late. My son bled out. His murder is still unsolved, and no one will talk.
Tyler was 20. He loved music. He wanted to be an occupational therapist.
When Tyesa died, I sat by the cemetery, crying my heart out because I couldn't get her back. I wanted to die.
With my faith, I knew I couldn't kill myself. So I wanted somebody else to do it.
On her anniversary, I left my children with their dad, and I went to the worst places. To get run over by a bus, to get shot, to get robbed, anything. Nothing happened.
For six months after Tyler was killed, I couldn’t get out of bed. I went from a size 10 to a size 2.
The pain was the same, but I was different.
I wanted vengeance. I bought guns. I learned everything about how people get guns illegally.
I kept track of the people who might have been involved with Tyler’s murder. When the detective assigned to Tyler’s case retired, he said his department told him not to investigate. I realized I had to do this on my own, so I started fighting a different way.
Writing saved me. When Tyesa died, someone gave me a journal and told me to write down the responding police officer’s name, police report number, to document my journey. Sometimes, I wake up at night and write thoughts about the case.
When I decided to help others who’ve lost children, I started with journals.
I started the TY (Tender Youth) Foundation, using the first two letters of my children’s names, because our youth are tender and need guidance and better communities.
We give survivors journals. Tyler wrote music. Tyesa wrote poetry. I think I learned it from them.
I started to speak, too. I joined Brady Illinois and One Aim (Illinois Council Against Handguns) to change gun laws. Those organizations gave me the tools to speak on behalf of my children to get legislation passed. Now, I’m on their boards.
On Jan. 17, 2019, exactly 27 years after Tyesa was killed, I shook hands with Gov. JB Pritzker as he signed a bill requiring gunstores to get state licenses. That triumph came after so much trauma, telling my story over and over to convince legislators to pass the measure.
Since then, more bills have been passed. Now, we’re working on three bills on rights for victims’ families, access to firearms for people who have orders of protection filed against them and police transparency.
Still, I feel frozen in time because my son’s case remains unsolved.
I haven’t moved out of the house where he was killed. Tyler’s bedroom is still exactly how he left it. His car is in the garage.
My daughter Traci tells me, “You won't move forward until you actually clean out the room.”
I am stuck.
But I can still fight from here. I’m fighting for accountability and investment in Black and Brown communities. If we invest in impoverished communities, parents can invest more in their children.
The boy who murdered my daughter was 14. His mother was on drugs, and he grew up on the streets in Cabrini-Green.
He was in the affluent Gold Coast when he killed Tyesa. Tyesa is proof that gun violence anywhere affects everyone everywhere.
In a 1992 article, I said, “I wish this gun violence would come to an end.” It’s 2024, and, in some neighborhoods, it hasn’t gotten better. So what are we going to do?
I wasn’t allowed to touch my son after he died
Estela Díaz writes that “the police kept me from saying my final goodbye. The experience showed me how cold the justice system can be for survivors.”
By Estela Díaz
When I saw my son’s lifeless body, a breathing tube hanging from his mouth, I wanted to embrace him.
A police officer stopped me. “You can’t touch him,” he said. “I’m so sorry, but he is a piece of evidence.”
I begged him to let me hug my son for the last time. What more could they find from that embrace than the fingerprints of his mother? But the laws of our cruel system for processing violent death denied me the right to hold him one last time.
I could only shout from afar: “Son! I’m here. Let’s go home!”
To the system, my son was a statistic. To me, he is my son. His name is Zadkiel. Fernando Zadkiel Vega-Díaz.
I used to tell Zadkiel he taught me how to be a better mother, a braver person.
Now, I’m learning how painful the justice system can be for survivors. I’m learning to live with pain and love at the same time. The memories of Zadkiel’s bravery and sense of justice show me how I can use this hurt to make things better. I’m learning thanatology — the study of grief and death — to help make the process of loss and the justice system easier for everyone.
Seeing the ways the justice system can reinjure survivors has inspired me to push for changes in how police and courts interact with us. It feels like they want to close the case and be done. But, when we go to court, we relive the worst days of our lives.
The day my son was killed, I sent him off to a job interview, saying: “I’m so proud of you. I love you.” I was running late, so I didn’t hug him goodbye.
That night, I got a call from his cell and heard yelling, crying, sirens. I yelled: “Zadkiel? Zadkiel?” The call dropped.
I got a call back, and someone told me he’d been shot in the chest. At the hospital, we learned that Zadkiel didn’t make it there alive.
Detectives said he was at a bus stop when a car approached, and someone started arguing with him. Zadkiel had his arms up and nodded, but the person shot him. Zadkiel ran for a block before he fell.
A woman called an ambulance and held his hand until the end. Maybe God put her there so my son wouldn’t die alone. I thank her with all my heart.
My son died on Oct. 6, and they didn’t let me touch him. Later, when I went to the morgue, they only showed me pictures. Because my son was “a piece of evidence,” I didn’t get to say goodbye to him for 10 days — when I saw him at the funeral home.
Mothers should get to say goodbye to their children after a homicide. We should be able to touch them and hug them — not just identify their bodies.
I want the system to see more than the body. I want everyone to see the human, my son — Fernando Zadkiel Vega-Díaz. He was kind. Every time we argued, he brought me flowers.
He took care of others. When Zadkiel got his first paycheck, he took us to our favorite restaurant.
He was brave. In second grade, he saw a bigger kid bullying a kindergartner. Zadkiel told him to stop, then pushed him away.
After six painful months, I started a group for mothers, like me, living with loss and navigating our cold legal system. The only thing we all agreed on: This is hell. But it’s a hell we’re in together.
This September was the first time I saw the person who killed my son.
I felt hate and envy not for him but for his mom. I know it’s not her fault, but I envy her because she has her son. Even if he's in jail, she can visit him every Sunday. On Sundays, I visit Zadkiel at the cemetery.
But there’s no support for such complicated feelings in the justice system. I often think about the woman who held Zadkiel’s hand. She risked her life to be with someone she didn’t know because they needed help. I never got to thank her, but I know we need people like her to infuse humanity into the justice system. We need understanding like that when we see our loved ones at the medical examiner’s office. We need it when we face their killer.
It took 25 years to put together the missing pieces of my siblings murders
As the youngest child in her family, Jessica Brown writes, she doesn’t even “have many memories of my brother and sister. I have documents.”
By Jessica Brown
The medical examiner described my sister’s body as cold to the touch. Her body suffered multiple gunshot wounds. One on the left ear five inches below the top of the head, one four inches below the top of the head on the left ear, a graze wound to the left side of her neck and a graze wound to the left shoulder.
The medical examiner described my brother’s body as cold to the touch. His body suffered from multiple gunshot wounds. One 0.6 inches above the left eyebrow, one to the back of the head, one on the left arm, a lacerated gunshot wound to the palm of the hand and a lacerated gunshot wound to the first finger of the left hand.
They were murdered on March 11, 1996. It would take nearly 25 years to learn these details. I sought them out because I felt I had the right to know. But Illinois law disagrees.
In Illinois, a homicide victim’s family members can request a free copy of the police report and have a right to information about the conviction, sentencing, imprisonment and release of those accused of the crime. Otherwise, you must request information through the Freedom of Information Act, which usually means fees, long waits and redactions.
I’ve outlived my siblings and parents, but I’m still the baby. The baby is always kept in the dark as everyone tries to protect them. That only makes their desire to know stronger. I have so few memories of our lives before, and I don’t have anyone to fill in the gaps. I’m the last one. Instead of memories, I have documents.
People in my shoes should not have to pay and wait and fight and appeal for answers about the loved ones they’ve survived.
It was a Monday afternoon, and I was about to leave for my radio show when the phone rang. It was my eldest sister’s best friend. She told me Juanita and Rodney were dead.
I screamed so loudly that one of my dorm suitemates ran to get the hall director. In the minutes, days and years that came after, all I learned was that a woman who lived in my siblings’ building forced her way into their apartment and shot them multiple times at point-blank range, killing both instantly. Not knowing began to weigh on me.
When you’re the youngest child, it can feel like adults and older kids have secrets, worlds you know nothing about. It can feel like you’ve entered the story in the middle of the book
My mother had four babies. When I arrived home from school to attend the funeral, I saw my mother surrounded by friends and family. I can still hear her scream, “That woman killed my babies!”
Over the next two weeks, extended family helped clean the apartment my siblings shared. Rodney had been in a construction accident and lost his left leg. Juanita opened her home to him for his rehabilitation.
The first thing I saw was the blood splatter along the wall by the front door where Juanita had been shot. The evidence of an intruder was everywhere, their belongings strewn about. On Rodney’s hospital bed, I saw the urine stain, revealing the fear my brother suffered on what became his deathbed.
It was nearly impossible for me, a 19-year-old college student, to process the scene, and I didn’t dare overwhelm my mother with questions
After I graduated, I spent a year at home. I had worked on my student newspaper and eventually began a career in journalism. I used my knowledge about accessing public documents and sought out the initial police incident report. I obtained a single-paged, redacted document that said little.
I convinced my parents to come with me to the Cook County courthouse to read the police report. By then, the woman who had killed my siblings was dead. I hoped that would mean information was unredacted.
I walked out with a large manila file that I didn’t immediately read because I was afraid. At that time, it wasn’t about specifics. It was about retrieving and possessing knowledge about two people I loved dearly. It was the only way I had left to hold onto them. I stored it away in a plastic bin that I carried from city to city for more than 20 years. I ended up back home in Chicago in 2007.
After settling into my job and being OK with living in the city that took so much from me, I felt ready to sift through the documents. While there was information related to filing charges against the killer, I still didn’t have the whole story. I needed more than a “supplemental report.” I’d need it all— court documents, autopsy reports. No redactions. No hidden truths.
In the fall of 2018, I was teaching a class about FOIA. I told students, “If there is something you want to know about then go find out.” I realized I should do the same. A colleague encouraged me to restart my own document journey.
I got a full police report but learned that it would cost hundreds of dollars to obtain the autopsy reports. I felt defeated. The FOIA officer offered me an alternative — view them in person.
I recalled the horror of walking in to their apartment and seeing evidence of violence and knew I shouldn’t go alone. My colleague sat by my side as I read every page of police interviews and autopsy reports. I took notes of details I thought mattered —– what they wore, the contentious history with the upstairs neighbor who would later end their conflict with gun violence. I read every word of her confession. The woman who killed my siblings became the person who told me about their last moments. I finally had my full narrative. It came from the voice of the murderer.
I wept uncontrollably. But now I knew.
While I sometimes have flashes of the violence the documents described, I work to fill my memories with the joys I had with my siblings. I worry about forgetting.
But as long as I keep remembering their lives, Juanita and Rodney will be more than just dead.
If a trauma center had been closer, my childhood best friend might be alive
The Chicago neighborhoods with the most bloodshed need adequate medical services, Juan Rendon writes.
By Juan Rendon
I always thought Junior and I would go to college together, and our kids would grow up together. Instead, when he was 19, I lost my very best childhood friend.
On Dec. 30, 2012, Junior was shot along with two other people. Junior was shot in the abdomen, but there was no trauma center nearby. Blood loss, his family said, was a major factor in his passing.
Losing Junior made me realize that, while impoverished areas suffer most from gun violence, they’re often not equipped to handle the bloodshed. In Chicago’s city limits, there are five Level 1 trauma centers and a sixth that serves only pediatric patients, and they tend to be on opposite ends of the city. There were only four when Junior died.
Chicago needs more trauma centers, and its hospitals and emergency staff need better trauma training. This was the case when Junior died, and it’s still the case now. The only changes I’ve seen in Humboldt Park are more condos and coffee shops for outsiders. These changes don’t serve the people who’ve been there for generations, the neighborhood kids like me and Junior who grew up thinking we had the whole world in our little slice of Chicago. If we instead invested in communities like ours, maybe my best friend would still be here.
I met Junior when I was 11, and he was 7. A bully at Kedvale Park where the neighborhood kids used to hang out tried to push Junior, who hit him and ran away. .
I later learned that we lived maybe a block apart and that we both loved wrestling and video games, especially Street Fighter. We started hanging out in the park that summer. My family ended up moving to the first floor of the building Junior’s dad owned, solidifying the friendship. We did everything together. The only time we were apart was when we were out of town. We were practically family.
As we grew up, Junior was still someone I counted on the most. One Father's Day, my son's mother got mad at me and refused to let me see my son. Junior talked me through it.
Around 11 one night, I was on the Red Line coming home from a bad date, and I wanted to talk to Junior about it. I told myself I’d call tomorrow. I had no idea Junior’s tomorrow would never come.
Fifty minutes earlier, Junior had been shot. He died at Stroger Hospital at 12:15 a.m.
I found out from family and friends later that an adversary from his past challenged him to a fight. But when Junior and his friends arrived, the person ambushed and shot them.
Another friend drove them to Norwegian American Hospital (now Humboldt Park Health), which does not have a trauma center. They transferred Junior to Stroger, but it was too late.
It could have been just another story. I can imagine him saying: “Oh, man. Remember when I got shot in the stomach, and I’m still here?”
We could have joked about it, but the first hospital wasn’t properly equipped, and now he’s gone.
Losing Junior felt like losing my childhood. It's like when they tell you Santa Claus isn't real; the magic was gone. It was like a rift in time. One moment, we were experiencing our youth, then everything I knew vanished.
His death created a gap between then and now.
Then, we didn’t have much, but we shared everything we had.
Now, I don’t share what I’m feeling. I don’t seek out new friends. I’m cautious with my kids. I probably shelter them too much, but sometimes I feel like they're too trusting. I just don't want them to hurt the way that I am. I don't want to make any plans that would fall through if the worst happens.
He’s the person I would’ve talked to about something like this.
I didn’t ever go downtown until I was 17. I thought all those buildings on the horizon were landmarks I would never get to touch.
Junior knew better. He would say: “There’s more out there. Let's go.”
One of our favorite movies was “Scarface.” Our favorite scene was when Tony Montana’s best friend Chico asks what he wants. Tony answers, “The world and everything in it.” When I have the money, I’ll start a club to teach at-risk youth art, history, sports and science. They’ll see more of the world than we did.
After losing Jacob, I want to change Chicago’s culture of silence
This crisis has shattered so many families, Melinda Abdallah writes, “including mine. If more people support survivors, we could begin to solve the problem.”
By Melinda Abdallah
On Nov. 10, 2019, my son Jacob woke up, did laundry and finished painting the room he and his girlfriend were preparing for the birth of their first child. A few hours later, he was shot while driving in Little Village.
Five years later, I know he was the unintended target but not who did it. Even though detectives told us that the gun used to kill my son was used four other times — three times before Jacob and once after, killing a 16-year-old girl — nobody has come forward to say they saw anything.
Because Jacob wasn’t from Little Village, no one there knew him, so detectives said they have few leads. I’ve come to learn that, because there’s so much violence in Little Village, even firsthand witnesses won’t speak up.
I want to change this culture of silence. Every day since Jacob’s death, I’ve fought to honor his spirit, to bring survivors and nonsurvivors to support each other in grief and to fight for safer streets. This year, as of the end of November, there have been 247 shootings, including 44 fatalities in the 10th Police District, which includes Little Village, according to the city’s Violence Reduction Dashboard.
This crisis has shattered so many families, including mine. Last summer, Jacob’s girlfriend was killed in a hit-and-run. I’m raising my 4-year-old grandson in Wisconsin. But, because of Jacob, we’re part of the Little Village community. If more people support survivors — by coming to marches, helping police solve cases, advocating for better gun laws — we could show perpetrators we’re not afraid of them. We could begin to solve the problem.
Jacob was driving a family friend’s car and stopped at a light when another car pulled up, and someone opened fire. He was shot six times: once in the side of his head, twice in the arm, twice in the chest. But he held on.
The doctor told me that Jacob coded and came back several times.
“With that trauma, we should have never been able to bring him back the first time,” the doctor said. “Your son's hanging on for some reason.”
I believe he was waiting for his baby. When the baby came, Jacob was mostly unresponsive, but he seemed to know. Jacob died two days later. We named his son Jacob Jr.
Our estranged family came together around both Jacobs in those five days. Jacob always brought people together, and now I bring his spirit to unify the people of Little Village in the fight for peace.
I didn’t know about Little Village before my son moved there. Now, his death ties me to the area. I’ve learned that police there are understaffed, that residents are afraid they’ll be targeted if they come forward as witnesses, and others won’t come forward because of their undocumented status.
Now, I work with Parents for Peace and Justice and Mothers and Families United for Justice (under the Little Village Community Council) to advocate for victims, support survivors, and try to prevent gun violence. On July 27, we had the first “Run for Peace.” Shortly after, a 3-month-old baby was shot nearby in broad daylight.
Knowing my son was killed with a gun that hurt others has also made me an advocate for greater gun control policies. No one with gun violations should be able to own a firearm.
I’m gonna fight for my son until the death of me. We held another event in November, the week Jacob was shot. We march because we want a rebirth in Little Village. Jacob would’ve wanted that, too.
It’s my hope that the more people who know Jacob’s story, the more they’ll see we need change. Maybe someone will come forward with information about Jacob’s killers. Maybe more survivors will come to our events. Maybe nonsurvivors will join.
Maybe no one else will have to lose a son.
What it takes to keep young, Black and Brown people from ending up on either side of a gun
Her siblings were killed in different communities 20 years apart, Tamika Howard writes. “Now, as a correctional officer, I can see that we need investment in our communities and trauma support for our youth if we ever hope to stop gun violence.”
By Tamika Howard
It was range week, when correctional officers in training learn to use their rifles. We were told to shoot the target’s “center mass.”
Twelve years ago, my little brother Tyler was shot in his chest — his center mass.
Eight years had passed, but every time I shot that target, all I could see was my brother, in our driveway, getting shot in the chest.
“Center mass.” Boom. The floodgates opened.
I’ve been a correctional officer for several years. I’ve carried my trauma since I was 11. I carry it now as I interact with people who are part of the justice system that failed to solve my brother’s murder. I encounter men who are incarcerated for crimes like the one that took my brother.
Being a correctional officer has unexpectedly become part of my healing journey. Paired with my childhood trauma, work has helped me see what young Black and Brown men face in our underserved communities. It’s helped me focus on the problems that land them in jail or on either side of a gun.
Some of the men I see at work never healed. Some come from communities where there were no youth programs or positive mentorship. Without thriving businesses or safe social spaces, they ended up everywhere but where they needed to be — sometimes behind bars.
Trauma and a lack of support are part of what landed me on the other side of those bars.
I was 11 when my sister Tyesa was shot and killed. I was 31 when Tyler bled to death.
As a child grieving my sister, I didn’t get to heal. As an adult survivor, I can see that more guidance, more tender love and care would have led me to better decisions.
Because my mom was a single mother working multiple jobs, Tyesa cared for us. I felt cheated. I lost a sister and a caregiver — and a piece of my mom.
I understood that my mom needed space, so I wanted to make sure that I didn’t get into trouble. I worked hard at school, but I also didn’t talk to her about what happened.
My mom held on so tight that, when I was ready to leave, I stayed. Much like her, I feel stuck.
I got a degree to provide a better life for my children. But, in 2012, Tyler, 20, was murdered. Now, as an adult and a parent, I have a better understanding of what my mother went through.
When my brother was killed, I took the allotted three days of bereavement leave and family medical leave from my job with a waste-management company. While time to grieve was helpful, for some, trauma can last a lifetime,and there isn’t a lot of mandated support. After 11 years with the company, I was let go.
Two and a half years later, I became a correctional officer because I needed a stable career and saw it as an opportunity to learn about community disinvestment and gun violence.
Some of the men I see at work are incarcerated for heinous crimes, but others are there because they made poor decisions to provide for their families in communities that were rife with violence but offered few career options. That does not excuse their crimes, but they never received the support to deal with their environment.
When a few of them saw my story on the news, they asked how I could come in every day, knowing some of them committed violence or worse. They say I’m never disrespectful or angry.
I tell them my brother could’ve been in their shoes, and I hope someone would treat him with humanity.
Some of these men make me think of my son. Because Tyler was killed at 20, my son struggled to imagine living past that age. That’s another form of trauma.
These revelations informed the work my mother and I do with our grassroots organization, Tender Youth (TY) Foundation, in the south suburbs. We teach proper gun storage and positive conflict resolution and connect victims with resources.
This work showed me the gaps in our systems and led me to believe the city should employ advocates to work specifically with youth survivors, to set them up with a therapist, work with their school to seek academic accommodations and make sure their teachers know their situation. They would also serve as a reliable adult while parents grieve.
My whole family has been living in trauma since we lost Tyler and Tyesa. Because my brother was killed in front of my home, home stopped feeling safe. There also wasn’t enough support for young people affected by violence.
In communities without safe places — like affordable park district programs, art galleries, skating rinks, community centers — or programming like job readiness or STEM programs, young people can find themselves adrift, the way my son felt after Tyler died. So I try to host events where they can find mental health support and a safe place.
I want all the young people in Chicago, including my kids, to remember that they deserve to be young — because childhood is a voyage that I missed.
