Paul Bass Photos
Pastor Valerie Washington prays with family of slain 18-year-old Anthony Strother at Wednesday vigil.
Anthony Strother.
The metaphorical “Village” worked hard to raise Anthony Strother back up. So it stung extra hard when a shooter cut him back down for good.
Strother, 18, was shot dead Monday evening while visiting the McConaughy Terrace public-housing development on South Genesee Street from his home in the Hill neighborhood.
A rally and prayer vigil in his memory by the homicide site drew not just neighbors but community leaders who worked with Strother and his family to turn around his life — and believed he had turned a corner. Now they called on the community to help police find the killer, before someone else is slain in their youth.
Community members assembled on South Genesee Street for rally and vigil.
Street outreach worker William “Juneboy” Outlaw knew Strother. Outlaw counseled Strother while he served prison time for a crime committed early in the Covid-19 pandemic. Then, upon Strother’s release, Outlaw helped him find work at the North Haven Amazon warehouse. Outlaw talked Strother down when Strother came to him distraught the day he watched a judge sentence the man who (in 2018) murdered his brother. (“You’re going to honor your brother by doing the right thing,” Outlaw told him.) Outlaw was in the process of guiding Strother through obtaining his commercial driving license when Strother himself was shot dead this week.
“He was on the right path,” Outlaw said Wednesday evening. “He was a very good kid.”
Kermit Carolina, a school system youth engagement specialist, knew Strother. He helped Strother re-enroll in Riverside Academy when he left prison. Then he helped him pursue his GED when the Amazon job required him to work during the day.
Members of the NHPD shootings task force set up Reck Dance sound system for the rally.
Top city cop Karl Jacobson knew Strother. Like Carolina, he would visit Strother’s house, touch base with his father, seek to guide him to a second chance.
West Hills Alder Honda Smith knew Strother; two weeks before the killing, Strother approached her with some friends by the soda cooler at Omar Deli at Harper and Valley streets asking her help in getting some of them jobs. She said she was ready to call them back this week with leads.
“We surrounded him with hope,” Jacobson, the NHPD’s assistant chief, said at the rally Wednesday. “We gave him a second chance. He was doing better. He doesn’t have a second chance anymore because of what happened the other night.”
Alder and retired police Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur with Anthony Strother's grandmother Vergie; Abdussabur has worked with family members for years on anti-violence efforts.
“A team of people were really working with him,” said Eric Strother, Anthony’s dad. “I was working with him. I just miss him. I really miss him.”
The police don’t know yet who killed Strother or why. Speaker after speaker Wednesday appealed to the dozens assembled on South Genesee Street to urge anyone with information to come forward.
Alder Smith (pictured above) spoke about the time she learned her nephew had stolen items from Home Depot. “I called the police on him, because he had no business going stealing,” she said. “If I can do it it, you can do it. Stop having shut mouths … before a baby becomes riddled with bullets.”
Pastor Valerie Washington, who grew up in the neighborhood and has led anti-violence street prayer services at McConaughy Terrace, told the crowd that one of her sons did hard time for “trafficking drugs and guns to Maine. I gave him up because I wanted him to live.”
Assistant Police Chief Karl Jacobson, housing authority chief Karen DuBois-Walton, Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow, Mayor Justin Elicker during moment of prayer.
Another theme, in the speeches and then in emotional, clustered, spontaneous prayers in the street with the family, linked pleas to help police with pleas to avoid retribution.
“Street justice,” Mayor Justin Elicker argued, doesn’t equal true justice. It doesn’t signal courage. “Courage is standing at the witness stand, looking at the killer, and saying, ‘He did it.’ We can honor [Strother’s] life by finding his killer so we can prevent another life from being lost.”
Pastor Washington praying with family and community members at the vigil.
The concern about retribution coursed through the prayers that Pastor Washington directed to Anthony’s 15-year-old brother Jordan as she huddled with him, Anthony’s sister, his father Eric, and his grandmother Vergie Strothers, who had been raising Anthony along with Eric after Eric’s mother died. Jordan looked up to his older brother, who taught him how to play basketball.
“God, it’s OK. It’s OK for him to cry,” Washington prayed aloud, her eyes closed, her arm around Jordan’s shoulder as family members and city officials and others pressed close.
“Crying shows, Father God, that he has a heart. Is made flesh.
“We pray that when he is by himself, when he is in the bathroom, wherever he is by himself, he will begin to talk to you.
“Show him who you are. Show him your glory. Father, I pray that the person who has taken his brother, you will allow that person to become incarcerated. Before this month is out. Show him, God. Touch him, father! Give him peace. Don’t let him grow angry. Don’t let him be angry in life. Father; do not allow him to even seek retaliation. He’s a good kid. God, this is a good kid!”
Murmurs of assent seconded the comment.
“He’s a good kid, God! And he will continue on the right path. We thank you Father God for allowing him not to succumb to whatever is happening around him. Thank you for giving him new hope and new dreams.
“In Jesus’s name we pray.”
Paul Bass Photo
“Can I have a hug young man?” Washington asked Jordan.
Jordan answered with his arms.
“It’s OK,” the pastor told him, patting his back. “It’s OK.”
The Village had lost Anthony. It wasn’t giving up on Jordan.
My opinion is that more supernatural beliefs and mythological stories won’t help alleviate poverty and violence. More fellowship might. I am not one to shun organized religion… but it doesn’t work except for the fellowship. What will work is if we alleviate poverty and invest in healthcare instead of militarizing police to serve possession warrants. Prohibition Always leads to violence. “Father God” in my opinion is what has brought us to where we are now.