Until last weekend.
This is a bit surprising since I frequent one of the most dangerous cities in the country a couple times a week. The National Council for Home Safety and Security lists McKeesport as number 4 on their list based on recent shooting statistics.
I grew up in McKeesport and my parents still live there. On Saturday, a gun shot victim was found in a garage I used to walk past each Tuesday when I took piano lessons back in the early 80s.
Even though this fatal shooting happened in a place I can visualize and am familiar with, the victim was unknown to me. But just hours earlier, in a nearby community, there was another shooting. This one happened in a place I am not familiar with, but the victim - I knew. In fact, he recently left me a few voicemails regarding a suggestion for a possible newspaper article.
I am not going to pretend I knew Rev. Sheldon Stoudemire very well. In fact, since we met back in 2015, I've probably talked to him less than ten times. But replaying his phone messages, this past weekend, brought tears to my eyes. He called me Kris, which is typically done by family, he thanked me for my hard work and ended the call with God Bless You.
For those of you who did not know him, Rev. Stoudemire started his street ministry in 1993. He worked within communities of Allegheny County when things got rough.
"I go where the homeless are at, I go where the drug dealers are at, where the gang members are at, where the disinherited are at," said Stoudemire during a recent interview.
He was an ordained Baptist minister but his credentials went further than that. He was an author, boxer, army ranger, and a graduate of the FBI Citizens' Academy. He had been involved with Mad Dads (Men Against Destruction, Defending Against Drugs and Social Disorder) street patrols, volunteering at the Salvation Army in Braddock, and teaching anti-bullying classes.
As I tried to make sence of him losing his life to the kind of violence he tried to prevent, I said to my husband, "This is such a devastating loss to the community." My husband said, "Every loss of life is a loss to the community."
Rev. Stoudemire was a person who sought out the forsaken, those written off by others, those deemed a menace to society. It takes a special kind of person to do that. He was trying to make a difference in ways that often went under the radar and for what? For this to happen? To have his mission cut short at age 57? I am sorry, but this just doesn't make sense. Why him? Why now?
Working in the news business, I've become desensitized to the shootings, the violence, the death. You almost have to to be able to do the job. I have spoken with mothers who have lost sons and daughters, men who have lost brothers and sisters, teens who have lost siblings. Rev. Stoudemire was out there trying to prevent another person from experiencing the unfathomable loss these people have endured and in doing so, sacrificed his own life.
Being a practicing Catholic, I took some time to talk to God. As a person of faith, I was taught to believe everything happens for a reason, at its right time and for a greater purpose but I said, "I'm sorry, God, I think we needed the Reverend here."
I replayed in my head the last time I saw Rev. Stoudemire. It was at his boxing studio in Homestead. I recall taking his photo for the Braddock mayoral candidate article I was writing at the time and agreeing to eventually do a story on the kids that come to the E. 9th Avenue gym. I was in a hurry that morning as we were going to press before noon. I feel badly looking back that I was rushed to get on my way. But how was I to know that would be the last time we would speak in person?
Social media was lit up over the weekend with stories from people who have been touched by Rev. Stoudemire. People, who like me, were trying to make sense of it all. Just trying to process. But some, while grieving, talked about moving forward. The 'what do we do now?'
One person wrote, "We can't give up."
And that part is true. All Rev. Stoudemire's hard work cannot be in vain. But whatever happens next, it seems like there will be one more guardian angel that has joined the fight. And who knows, that angel, added to the many others, may be just what was needed to help guide the work that needs to be done within our communities and in our hometowns.
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God bless you, Rev. Stoudemire.
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