Ceasefire Article via the Oregonian
Please take the time to read this article and support us in our call for ceasefire
Mother whose son was fatally shot in November, community members to call for ceasefire in gang violence
By Maxine Bernstein | The Oregonian/OregonLive Email the author | Follow on Twitter on December 06, 2015 at 6:00 AM, updated December 09, 2015 at 12:30 PM
Less than a month after her 26-year-old son was gunned down outside the North Portland church she and her family regularly attended, Erica West will join Monday night with other community members to call for a 30-day 'ceasefire' to gang violence.
West rushed to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center the afternoon of Nov. 11 upon hearing her son had been shot. Driving to the hospital, she couldn't avoid spotting the crime scene where Laray Seamster was gunned down in broad daylight on North Vancouver Avenue.
Laray Seamster, 26Courtesy of family
She knew it was dire when she saw other family and friends already at the hospital. A doctor soon informed her that Seamster, her oldest of five children, was shot multiple times, and it was a wound to his head that killed him.
"I fell to my knees and just cried,'' recalled West, 44, during an interview Saturday night, as her four other children crowded by her, their arms around her shoulders to lend support. "People probably all over the world heard me cry out.''
Grief-stricken, West said she's lost her appetite, and feels anxiety-ridden. But she said she feels the need to speak out to try to stem the senseless shootings.
"Just to try to stop it – no other mother needs to go through this, no matter who they are. No family deserves to go through this,'' she said. "I haven't been involved in anything like this. It's heartbreaking.''
A 41-yr-old Portland man named Nathaniel Williams is helping to broker the ceasefire with the help of friends who hail from different gangs, though he's never been a member and just received his bachelor's degree last spring from Portland State University.
"It's just baby steps,'' Williams acknowledged. He started a group in August called Unify Portland, seeking to bring together older gang members to send a message to the younger ones not to follow in their footsteps.
Why a month-long ceasefire during the holiday season? "It's reasonable, something attainable,'' he said.
"We would like for it to be extended, of course. We're not going to stop working after 30 days,'' he said. "We're just going to keep working and pounding the pavement to minimize the violence.''
Williams credited his strict mom from keeping him away from gang activity - plus the paralyzing fear he felt in middle school when someone shot at him and his friend not far from his uncle's home in Long Beach, California in 1985, he said. He returned to Portland after that shooting. Although he stayed away from gang activity, his friends were involved in different gangs. One of his good friends was killed when he was a sophomore at Jefferson High School.
"I pride myself in getting along with everybody,'' Williams said. His group's goal: "We are trying to cut off the youth pipeline to gangs. Our plan is to unite all of the older gang members first.'' By having the older gang members relinquish their rivalries and swear off their violent pasts, Williams hopes the youth now involved in gangs may get the message.
Matt Hennessee, senior pastor at Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church ,was in his church on the afternoon of Nov. 11. Ministers were in a downstairs fellowship hall and heard about five shots and ran upstairs, alerting him to the shooting outside. He ran out, and saw a body in the street. Portland police were blocking off the street with crime scene tape.
About 30 minutes later, he received a call that the man dead outside had been a church member, the son of a family that's been attending for generations. Hennessee said his assistant at the church had seen Seamster walking on the sidewalk by the church moments before the shooting. Hennessee rushed to the hospital to comfort the family.
Seamster had just come from a chiropractor's appointment, and was walking to catch a bus home, his mother said. He had moved to Las Vegas more than a year ago, and was back in Portland for a visit. Seamster had survived a prior shooting to the back of his head in Las Vegas about a year and a half ago, his mother said.
Last month, Portland police said two suspects ran from the North Portland homicide scene where Seamster was shot. Seamster was known to police as a "gang associate,'' but they do not know if that played a role in the killing. No arrest has been made.
Hennessee officiated at Seamster's funeral. Seamster's mom said she now finds it difficult to approach the church that she's attended regularly. "If I want to go to church, I have to relive knowing what happened – it's still going to be that memory of my son laying there in the street,'' West said.
Yet West said she feels some comfort knowing her son collapsed outside the church. "I believe the Lord was like, 'OK, he's at home.' I mean that's holy ground.''
Her son leaves behind two children, a 6-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son. The girl drew a picture of her father in a casket, flowers around it and stick figures of people standing by crying, West said.
Hennessee, who has been walking with other community members as part of The Connected group that has sought to reclaim Holladay Park from drugs, gangs and other violence, urged the community to be outraged by the ongoing violence. There have been 174 gang-related shootings or assaults in Portland this year, up from 109 by the end of last year.
He pressed community members to find more ways to help out young men who are struggling and need support.
Hennessee said he's heard the African-American community speak out when there's "blue on black crime,'' referring to police shootings of black men. But he wants the outrage also to be voiced when there's "black on black crime.''
"We should not be satisfied with black on black crime,'' Hennessee said. "I'm not condoning blue on black crime, but we ought to be just as angry when it's us.''
