Tracey Clark says she agrees with curfew enforcement and all the talk about parents needing to be more responsible, including having better eyes on their children.
But a 9 p.m. curfew she imposed on her 14-year-old son still didn’t stop him from getting shot while downtown Detroit on Sunday night — a bullet just barely avoiding his heart.
“Quarter-of-an-inch to the left, he wouldn’t be here,” Clark, 46, told a Free Press reporter at the Children’s Hospital in Detroit on Tuesday, May 19, two days after the shooting.
Tavuan Clark was shot during a so-called “Teen Takeover” national trend, where large groups of young people flood downtown and hang out. There hadn’t been any significant incidents in Detroit until Sunday at about 9:40 p.m., when Tavuan told the Free Press his group of friends got in a fight with another group after they pushed one of his friends off a Lime scooter, resulting in gunfire from the other group.
He said he doesn’t even know the guys who shot him.
Much has been said about what the city and parents need to do in order to prevent further bloodshed. Last year, Detroit Police hammered down on curfew violations and parental responsibility laws. This year, the city announced its “Occupy the Summer” initiative and a six-point plan to help prevent youth violence during the summer months, when the city typically sees more bloodshed, and establish safe spaces for them to gather.
That’s all great, Clark said. But she said she knew exactly where Tavuan was going that Sunday night, and even went with him downtown the night before and everything seemed safe, she said. She has known the friends her son was with since they were toddlers. And she instructed her son to be back home by 9 p.m., an hour before the citywide curfew for his age group.
“I knew where he was. I know what kind of kid I got,” Clark said.
She described her son as “sweet,” “respectful,” and “a big ol’ teddy bear.” Tavuan doesn’t get into trouble, and neither do his friends, she said. So when her son asked to go downtown again on Sunday:
“I can’t lock him in the house,” she said. “I don’t feel like that’s fair. … I could have been there and it still would have happened.”
Clark pointed to a diagram of where the bullet pierced through her son’s lung. In front of her was her eighth grader in a hospital bed, in and out of sleep, recovering from surgery, after doctors removed the damaged portion of his lower left lung.
He was surrounded by family calling him a “miracle,” smiley-face balloons, animal plush pillows, some doughnuts.
He didn’t say much, mostly that he says he wasn’t scared when he heard two large “pows.” Or when he collapsed to the ground, chest hurting.
Or even when he told two Ceasefire members “‘don’t let me die, sir,'” as the Community Violence Intervention responders ripped off his shirt, revealing the gunshot wound, and applied pressure until EMS arrived.
And when asked by his mother what he wants done about his situation, “arrest them,” Tavuan said of the suspects involved.
And they have been — two teenagers, ages 16 and 17. One of them was charged with a concealed weapon violation, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office announced Tuesday. The other remains in a juvenile detention facility while prosecutors have five days to make a charging decision.
Clark recalled the moments before she found out her son was shot — a text message to Tavuan around 8:30 p.m. wondering why he hadn’t asked to be picked up yet, her phone calls to him left unanswered.
Then she got a call from an unknown number with a woman on the phone, telling her that her son had just been shot.
“My heart dropped and I took off,” she said. She was told her son was OK and breathing, but she needed to see for herself — “I ran a lot of red lights going down Telegraph.”
It was when she saw her son, alert and talking, in the hospital that she was finally able to breathe, she said.
Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at asahouri@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mom’s 9 p.m. curfew didn’t stop teen from getting shot in Detroit
Reporting by Andrea May Sahouri, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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