My friend was murdered.
It’s surreal, even now, to say those words. Stranger still to say it about him. He was smart, crafty and funny. Same age as my son. Peggy, his mom, is one of my favorite folks from my hometown. She’s quite a lady, loves everyone and did a great job raising her kids. He told me once he couldn’t imagine not talking to his mom every day because no matter what, she is his best friend. When we first met he was 25 and living at her place. He finally moved out. Bought the place next door. Then the one across the street. And so on. Family was everything to him. He enjoyed his love, his kids, his friends. He was larger than life. Admired and respected by everyone in his family and most of his community too. Someone who leaves a huge void when he is gone. Losing him at all was bad enough.
Last Sunday morning my friend answered his door and argued with a wannabe young thug who took out a shotgun and shot him in the head.
In front of his mama’s house.
In front of a deputy sheriff exiting his squad car.
And right beside his sister who just missed taking a bullet herself. She was immediately, horrifyingly covered in his blood.
He died instantly though he continued to breathe for an hour. While he lay in the street, some lowlife took a picture. Just as his mother pulled up from church and saw him lying there. Just as his love came out, saw the situation and grabbed her three nieces and nephews behind her back into the house.
His sister, out of her mind in grief and horror, ran to his truck and started it, intending to ram the police car holding the monster until she knew he was dead. She wrecked the truck trying to cross a ditch to get there.
More cops came. Life Flight took him to UMMC in Jackson where he was pronounced deceased. The monster was taken to an undisclosed county jail for his protection.
Now my friend is gone. And that is a sad and final thing. He supported many members of his huge family, almost all elderly. He bought more than a city block in our little hometown and developed it for them to live. He hired half of the male population of the town to renovate trailers and houses and build fences and sidewalks and driveways. And now he’s gone.
And if that isn’t bad enough, three of the four women he loved most in this world have been left with the most gut-wrenching, horrifying memories of their last moments with him that they will forever be changed.
They did not deserve that.
My friend did not deserve that. No one deserves that.
My friend was a young Black man. The shooter was a young Black man.
I believe a lot of young Black men have less respect for young Black lives than anyone.
When will it end?
When they are all gone?
Lillian Latham, Louisville, MS
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