Young Guns, Stolen Lives

It has been a year to the day of the murder of Tyrone Love, gunned down the early hours of February 16, 2009 as he walked home from work through Seattle’s Central District.

I remember that morning well.  By the time I’d gotten to work I had emails and voice messages asking me if I knew about a young man named Tyrone Love.

I didn’t know him when he was alive, but the aftermath of his murder has changed me nevertheless.

The overwhelming shock, grief and pain that blanketed the city was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.  It just seemed like everyone knew who this young man was, and no one had a negative thing to say about him; all agreed he embodied his surname- Love.

No one could understand why anyone would ever want to hurt Tyrone because he was as non-violent as a person could be.

I watched the news of his death reverberate from the north end, to the south end, beyond city limits and state lines in a unifying thread of sorrow and I did the only thing I could- I wrote about it.

Prior to that I’d become numb to the realities of violence in our city, particularly gun, gang and youth violence.  I was concerned, but not as much as I should have been.  I was knowledgeable on the issues, but not nearly as much as I should have been.  Tyrone changed that.

A year later, Tyrone’s murderer is still at large.  Besides rumors and misinformation, police have nothing solid to lead them to a suspect.  Many in the community thought there would be so much outrage, someone would have to come forward- but no one has.

It’s discouraging for his friends, and especially his family.  We think crime is solved in real life as easily as it’s solved in an hour television show- but that’s not the case.  Detectives have told Tyrone’s mother “no one saw anything.”  Or at least, no one is talking.

That is what is most upsetting for his mother Roberta and his sister Gwen.  I sat down with both of them last year.  They welcomed me into their home to talk about their son, brother, friend and father figure, and the havoc cast into their lives because of his death.

“I just sit and think and remember the last time he told me ‘I love you’, he said “Gwennie, I love you,” recalled his sister.

“I got a hug that Valentine’s Day, I got a big hug,” recounts his mother.  “I just wrapped my arms around him and held him and hugged him…didn’t know that would be the last hug I was going to get.”

It was Tyrone’s girlfriend Margarita that discovered he hadn’t come. She awoke to find his side of the bed empty and knew something was wrong.

Their worst fears were confirmed within a few hours.  Margarita recounts, “I was upstairs in his room, and the…I can’t really describe it, the scream…I heard his mom scream, and I ran, I almost fell down the stairs onto his mom.”

A man, dressed in dark clothes stood in the front doorway. “He didn’t belong, you know? He wasn’t a friend of the family, he didn’t look like anybody…he wasn’t supposed to be there.  The memory of Roberta’s scream- a wail of maternal agony- is something Margarita will never forget; “I have dreams about that scream,” she told me.

“All I could say was ‘no, not my son, not my son,’” said Roberta.  “I just couldn’t believe it.  Who would do that to him?”

The “who” and “why” questions hang over Tyrone’s family and friends.  They all feel that someone knows something.

It was through my experiences writing about Tyrone I began to realize we as a community are disconnected emotionally from the impact of death and violence in our neighborhoods.  It’s news.  It’s statistics.  It’s sad and unfortunate, but unless you know the victim, it’s not personal.

At some point along the line, I stopped really caring.  It was hard for me to admit that to myself.  I thought I was concerned, I thought I was outraged even.  But did I care?  No.

Was I really seeing the impact of violence- and not just on a family, but a community? No.

Tyrone gave me fresh eyes and ears.  I started looking at the facts of youth, gun and gang violence, as well as the laws, policies and agencies involved.  I looked to the mainstream media and found that coverage on the issues tended to be one dimensional.

Details on the lives of the victims were so full of sensationalism and stereotypes, we’ve begun to question whether they are victims at all, or whether by lifestyle or social status, they deserved what happened to them.  Shame on us.

With my reinvigorated perspective, I’ve done what any other self respecting internet savvy writer would do: start a website dedicated to examining youth, gun and gang violence in the greater Seattle area.

Young Guns, Stolen Lives (aka The 2010 Project) will cover violent crimes impacting our youth/community, and the investigative and judicial processes while also giving tribute to the lives of those taken.

It will follow and inform the community on the legislation, policies and programs created by grassroots efforts or elected officials on the city, county and state level which impact the safety and well-being of our communities and our children, such as Mayor McGinn’s new Youth and Family Initiative.

My hope is that by providing a place which ties all the variables together we can all begin to better understand violence in our communities.

Last week we saw the horrific video of a 15 year old girl beaten unconscious by another teenager in the Metro Tunnel at Westlake.  While it was shocking, it was reminder that such violence is becoming more commonplace and can occur at anytime, anywhere.

A website can’t stop a bullet.  But what it can do is help us all to refrain from oversimplifying violence in our communities by providing facts and resources and by giving a little context to the lives of those killed.

Barely a day goes by that I don’t think about Tyrone Love and his family.  It’s bitter sweet, but if not for him, I wonder when my perspective would have changed.  Because of him, I have found a way to do my part.  I hope you find a way to do yours.