Gunfire took their son at 20. Now it takes his daughter, 12

Janet Rice headed to the hospital Thursday evening, as she routinely does when tragedy befalls her neighborhood. A barrage of gunfire had injured a number of younger folks, together with a 12-year-old woman struck within the head by a stray bullet.

Whereas en route, Rice’s telephone rang. She pulled over.

The younger woman in a Connecticut hospital combating for her life was her granddaughter — the kid of the son Rice misplaced to gun violence greater than a decade earlier.

The woman, Se’Cret Pierce, died Friday morning. She was 2 years previous when her younger father, Shane Oliver, 20, was killed within the fall of 2012 only some miles from the place his daughter was shot.

Having a son gunned down introduced sorrow and despair to the household. Now a granddaughter had perished, too.

“By no means in one million years did I anticipate to reply to a name for my 12-year-old granddaughter,” Rice mentioned in a textual content message Sunday, as she prepares to put her granddaughter to relaxation.

“I’m ANGRY, HEARTBROKEN, and NUMB,” she texted.

The seventh-grader was the seventh murder this 12 months in Hartford, a metropolis — like different city areas — struggling to include gun violence. Final 12 months, there have been 39 homicides in Hartford — up from 34 the 12 months earlier than, most dedicated with a gun.

For years, Se’Cret’s grandparents had spoken out in regards to the risks of weapons. For some time, Rice labored because the outreach coordinator for CT In opposition to Gun Violence. Now she works as a disaster response specialist.

Even earlier than the loss of life of his son, and now his granddaughter, the Rev. Sam Saylor knew nicely how gun violence was consuming away at his neighborhood — a numbing regularity in too many neighborhoods, he mentioned. Killing after killing, the pastor would present as much as as many vigils as he may to wish with bereaved households.

“It’s simply trauma on prime of trauma,” Saylor mentioned Saturday after family and friends gathered for a vigil in Hartford for his grandchild. By no means did he anticipate, he mentioned, “that I’d be on this parade of ache once more.”

Se’Cret was sitting in a parked automotive when she was shot, an harmless and unintended sufferer of a barrage of bullets that despatched folks operating for canopy.

Investigators mentioned no arrests have been made, however they have been nonetheless in search of a minimum of two folks believed to be within the automobile that sped away after the taking pictures.

Oliver’s killer, an acquaintance, is now serving 40 years in jail.

On the day he died, Oliver had left house to gather cash for a automotive he offered.

Like many gun-related killings, it started with an argument. Phrases escalated, and a gun was drawn. Oliver tried to run, however he didn’t get far. Two bullets to the again, and he died just a few hours later.

Throughout sentencing in 2015, Rice had pleaded for extra jail time.

“I actually hope it’ll save one other mother from all of the ache I’ve endured,” the Hartford Courant quoted Rice telling the decide throughout sentencing.

Nonetheless welling with grief, Oliver’s dad and mom drove to Newtown to get an viewers with then-Vice President Joe Biden, who was visiting with the grieving dad and mom of the 20 kids gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty.

Biden met individually with Saylor, Rice and different dad and mom who raised issues that the deaths of Black city youths have been being handled as footnotes in conversations about gun violence.

“Each of them took the loss of life of Shane and remodeled it into activism,” mentioned Kim A. Snyder, a documentary movie director, who grew to become acquainted with Rice and Saylor, whereas engaged on her Peabody-winning movie about Newtown.

Saylor has pushed for stricter gun legal guidelines and has tried to shine a highlight on the city violence that has taken so many younger Black lives.

“Then it was his personal child,” Snyder mentioned.

Even with the slight rise in homicides in Connecticut’s capital, the state has a number of the lowest loss of life charges from weapons, in keeping with the Violence Coverage Heart.

“However we’ve bought to do extra,” mentioned Jeremy Stein, the chief director of CT In opposition to Gun Violence.

Along with controlling the availability of weapons, Stein desires extra performed to scale back the demand for firearms whereas strengthening neighborhood applications that promote civility and work to scale back the impulse to achieve for a gun when disputes escalate.

Stein and others are asking the state to spice up funding for an anti-violence fee to $10 million yearly.

He known as the most recent taking pictures “extremely private” due to Rice’s connection to the group.

“She misplaced her son, Shane,” Stein mentioned, “and now Shane’s daughter has been murdered — each by gun violence.”

The suspects in Se’Cret’s killing appeared to focus on three males — ages 16, 18 and 23 — who have been standing on a sidewalk on a residential avenue not removed from downtown Hartford Thursday evening. They have been wounded, however all three have been anticipated to outlive.

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin urged the three surviving victims to cooperate with police, noting at a press convention Friday that they might lead police to Se’Cret’s killers.

“A tragedy like this ripples outward in a neighborhood and impacts so many,” he mentioned.

Se’Cret’s killing weighed closely on the minds of marchers Saturday as they took half within the metropolis’s annual Moms United In opposition to Violence rally. They gathered on Huntington Road, the place Se’Cret was shot, to affix the woman’s vigil.

Speeches got. Sermons have been mentioned. And prayers have been held.

One lady, chanting to the beat of a drum, carried the sentiment of the grieving neighborhood: “Put down the gun.”