Tuesday night in Delray Beach, an ex-con organized an end gun violence march and vigil, promoting love, pleading with young people to not make the same mistakes he did.
Tim Boykin took the all too common path growing up.
“Don’t be like me where your kids see your daddy on the other side. Raise your family while you got a chance. Because you might not feel it now but you’ll feel it later,” Boykin said.
50-years-old, now he’s putting his invaluable perspective to use.
“An old person came to me and said ‘Tim, don’t fight to get out of prison. Fight to get the prison out of you.’ And I did that,” he said.
Eight days ago police say Jasaun Harper was driving a stolen Jetta while someone else in the car shot at a Honda Accord. A man was shot and a baby was injured when the accord crashed.
Harper is connected to the ongoing feud between two groups in Delray responsible to more than 45 shootings since 2014, police say.
The march went through the northern part of the city, where much of the violence has happened. Around 100 people sang and prayed as they walked through the streets, escorted by Delray Beach police officers.
Eleanor Clinton carries this blue sign.
“My son was a shooter,” she said.
‘End gun violence,’ it says.
“My son is in prison right now for manslaughter for accidentally shooting his cousin, playing around with a gun,” she said.
With her painfully earned wisdom, she’s here tonight.
“It was something I never talked to him about, was guns but, I taught him about drugs and everything else. That wasn’t on my mind because guns wasn’t part of my activity,” she said about growing up and raising him in Delray Beach.
“We’re an All-American city and it’s time we start acting like one. It’s time to speak up,” said Rev. Wayne Jenkins from Christ Missionary Baptist Church.
Thursday night at 7 p.m., and Pompey Park in Delray, the police are hosting what they call a community conversation. The public is invited.