![]() ![]() “I’m not scared of nothing,” he started telling himself. Tyshaun figured all kids heard gunfire outside their homes, so he might as well learn to be brave, like his dad. He was afraid, but not as much as he had been a year earlier when someone started shooting near a playground just as he skidded down a red plastic slide. Chest throbbing, he hid behind the footboard and covered his head with his hands. Tyshaun didn’t want to get hurt like that, so he dropped the Xbox controller and leapt down to the worn hardwood floor of their aging three-bedroom house in Southeast Washington. On his dad’s dresser was a reminder: a three-inch button inscribed with “Rest in Peace” that honored a family friend shot two blocks away. “Get down on the floor,” he screamed, and the 7-year-old knew what that meant: more gunshots.īullets, Tyshaun had learned by then, could break glass and rip through skin and bone. Tyshaun McPhatter’s father burst through the open doorway, crouching. Pop, pop, pop, from just outside the second-floor window on that warm summer afternoon. The boy was sitting in his favorite spot, atop his dad’s bed, playing their favorite game, “NBA 2K16” on the Xbox One, when he heard the sound.
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