Around 2:30am on September 1st, 2019, two people were shot in the 6300 block of McKinley Avenue. Neighbors called about hearing gunshots, but by the time police arrived both individuals had been transported to a hospital in private cars. One of them was 23-year-old Davontre Denzell Robinson-Harris. Though he made it to the hospital, he did not survive his injuries. He is the 19th Tacoma Homicide of 2019.
There are few details of Davontre’s death. And police have yet to make an arrest as far as I can tell. One of the difficulties of writing about Tacoma homicides when the crime rate is increasing is that the media tends to focus less on the crime regardless of the severity. What someone in the media sees is an East Side shooting of an African American man in an area known for gangs. They don’t pay attention to the fact that Davontre had five children who now do not have a father. They’re too busy looking at the next story.
I think about those five children. And I think about Davontre’s family and friends. When I’m writing these articles I try my best to keep me out of it and focus on the victim. I apologize for interjecting myself in this instance, but it’s the murders where there is a lack of information, where the media is all but ignoring that it happened, that remind me why I do this. I’m writing this months later because this is an emotionally taxing thing that I do. And I know it’s just a tiny sliver compared to what Davontre’s people are going through.
There is a GoFundMe account set up in Davontre’s name. All of the money goes to his mother. https://www.gofundme.com/f/davontre039s-funeral
As always, the comment section is reserved for those who knew Davontre and want to share thoughts of memories of him.
- Jack Cameron
