SACRAMENTO, California — At ABC10 we cover a lot of gun violence in local news, but what we don't usually get to see is what happens a week, month or even years after loved ones have passed. What happens to parents who have lost a child?
ABC10 spoke with three Sacramento area fathers who lost their sons to gun violence. They've come together to try and make positive changes in their community and make sure their sons aren't forgotten.
- Deston Garrett, a 19-year-old rising football star known as 'Nutter' to his family and friends, was shot and killed in his Oak Park home in 2016.
- Jacob Lopez, a 20-year-old father and aspiring rapper, was shot and killed steps from his Citrus Heights apartment complex in 2022.
- Billy Scott III, 18, was days away from his Grant Union High School graduation when he was shot and killed inside a car in a North Highlands neighborhood in May.
To put it into perspective, Sacramento police data shows the department recorded 371 reports of shootings and 93 people shot in 2022. So far this year, the department has recorded 327 shootings and 86 people shot.
These fathers are in the process of doing everything and anything they can to give back to the community after the death of their sons. The Garrett family created the 21 Reasons Foundation in memory of Deston.
ABC10: How do you guys feel right now being in the same room together, and all of you having something in common?
Herman Garrett (Deston's father): It's important to be around people that are going through the same thing because that's where the healing starts at.
Billy Ray Scott (Billy's father): To be with other gentleman that are experiencing the same pain that you are... it helps.
Nathan Lopez (Jacob's father): I never met this man before, but we're here to share emotions and that's what is an important part of this healing, so it feels good to be with my other brothers.
ABC10: What does it mean to be a dad through this tragedy?
Lopez: Naturally, as fathers, we consider ourselves protectors, right? Whether it be now, whether we had anything to do directly with the death or not, we still felt we should have been there to take that bullet and we would take it a million times. That's something that's built into us as fathers.
Ray Scott: To be that father that he needed, that father that shows him the way — the real way to live and how to be a man — I put a lot of effort in that. It made me feel real good in areas in my life that I didn't know how, I didn't learn when I was younger when I had my other two boys.
Garrett: We can't be with our kids 24 hours or more. That's where I had to learn. We can't be with our kids 24 hours or more.
ABC10: How have you guys found strength with one another? Does that mean you guys call or text one another often? Do you guys have meetings? What do you guys do to support one another?
Garrett: My plan is to open up a father's group. I'm going to put that together because that's needed, just like the mothers going through it. Us dads going through it too, especially the dads that have been in their child's life. If you've been in your child's life and something happened, you deserve to have healing too.
Lopez: Unless you've been through it, unless you've actually been through it, you'll never understand it. Hopefully no one will ever have to understand our pain because it's absolutely life changing.
Ray Scott: We don't know exactly what we need in order to help us cope and to deal with it until we get involved, until we meet people who have experienced the same thing that we have. Then we exchange information and we communicate and we're pretty much on the same page. Then you realize your purpose and what you can do and what you can contribute to stopping this type of violence.
ABC10: What's your message to the community right now, and even to the lawmakers trying to stop this gun violence?
Garrett: You have to know where your kids are going, who they're involved with, and who they're hanging around with. That's when we're going to be able to stop this, when we get the parents involved.
Lopez: When we were growing up, it was drugs and stuff. For me, it was drugs growing up. Right now, it's violence, right? It's a little different. It's going to take the mental health and the politicians to really look at this and listen to us. When we say that, we need to get some more mentoring groups, more youth groups, get people involved in these young people's lives because if not, nothing's going to change.
ABC10: Do you guys have faith things will get better? Or do you guys believe you're going to have more brothers join you?
Garrett: I pray that things get better but unfortunately I think we're going to see more brothers like this because of the way the signs of the times are now. I'm just looking at what's going on every day.
Garrett, Lopez, and Ray Scott: Keep the faith, keep the faith, keep the faith, keep the faith.
Editor's note: Quotes in this article have been condensed for length and clarity.
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