Precious Lives

This is the final episode of Precious Lives. And for this final story, we thought we’d return to the first family we met - the family of Laylah Petersen.

On June 11, 1994, Garland Hampton woke up around 10:30 am. He poured himself a bowl cereal, took a shower and went to a friend’s birthday party. That evening, Garland got into a fight with a fellow gang member. He pointed a 9-millimeter pistol at Donell Storks and shot him in the left side of the head.

Well over a decade ago, pediatric surgeon Dr. John Densmore and his wife bought their first home. He had just started his residency at Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee.

At the end of 2016, Precious Lives will shift gears. We’ll wrap up our radio series and focus on a traveling live show. The Precious Lives team will attempt to reach all corners of Milwaukee to harness diverse energies to combat the problem of gun violence.

Violence clusters like an infectious disease. But you can also feel it when you walk into certain community spaces, like All People’s Church in Milwaukee.

After Sylville Smith was shot and killed by a police officer this summer, his family was left to grieve and figure out how to move forward.

We met 22-year-old Carlton Dewindt over a year ago, when he was featured on an early episode of Precious Lives.

There’s a lot we know about gun violence. We know it’s concentrated in poorer areas. And we know those areas tend to be heavily black. But how did things get that way -- how did we get to the point where 84% of Milwaukee’s homicide victims are black?

This is Precious Lives episode 93. We’re almost at our goal of telling 100 stories about gun violence and young people in Milwaukee. We’ve covered the family members who have lost loved ones, the activists fighting to make the city better, and the political leaders overseeing it all. Each week, we ask our interview subjects to be emotionally honest with us as we try to understand the problem of gun violence. This week, the microphones are turned on our reporters. Emily Forman and Aisha Turner produce the radio series, and Ashley Luthern writes companion pieces for the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel. This week, they let people in on what it’s like to cover this beat.

Born a few months apart, Mario Drain and his friends wound up with very different fates after committing armed robbery together in high school.