The Kingsessing mass shooting, one year later

It has been one year since a man dressed in body armor and armed with a homemade assault rifle casually walked nearly a mile through the streets of Kingsessing and shot eight people at random.

The carnage of July 3, 2023, one of the deadliest mass shootings in Philadelphia history, is forever seared into the minds of every victim, relative, and first responder at the scene. The deafening screams and gunfire. The trails of blood and bullet casings. A doctor’s indelible words: “Despite our best efforts ...”

Five people were killed: DaJuan Brown, 15; Dymir Stanton, 29; Ralph Moralis, 59; Joseph Wamah, 31; and Lashyd Merritt, 21.

And three others were wounded. A 13-year-old boy was shot in the leg, its bone shattered. A mother driving her 2-year-old twins to a family barbecue was struck in the eye with shattered glass and her sons struck by bullets and fragments when the gunmen fired more than a dozen shots into her Jeep.

The shooter, whom police have identified as 41-year-old Kimbrady Carriker, was arrested at the scene and remains in jail as the case awaits trial. Police have said Carriker, who is Black, confessed to the crime and said he wanted to help police fight gun violence by targeting Black men in the neighborhood.

» READ MORE: Remembering the lives lost in the Kingsessing mass shooting

Inquirer reporters spoke with more than a dozen people whose lives were altered by the shooting spree that day to see how they are doing one year later. Many said they have struggled to move forward with their lives, their days shrouded by a haze of anger and grief.

There is the 10-year-old who suffers from anxiety and struggles to sleep. A toddler who now walks on his tippy-toes after he was shot in the leg. A police officer who has yet to speak about the night with his wife.

Twelve months later, the survivors and the families of those who died are still reeling. Here are their stories.

It took nearly half a year for Octavia Brown’s life to return to a semblance of normalcy.

The gunman shot more than a dozen times into her car as she drove through the neighborhood with her toddlers and 10-year-old niece that summer evening.

By-Kir, her now-3-year-old son, was shot in the leg just above his knee. For five months, he refused to walk or fully straighten his leg. His limp went away about three months ago, she said, but he started walking on his toes to avoid the pain, a habit that continues. His twin brother, Jy-Fir, who was cut by glass and bullet fragments, took up the habit, too, because he likes to copy his brother, Brown said.

Me’Nyiah Johnson was in the front passenger seat when the bullets burst through. She dropped to the car floor and wedged herself under the dashboard so tightly that her aunt had to pull her out once they reached the hospital.

For weeks after the shooting, Me’Nyiah, now 11, wouldn’t eat. She was afraid to be alone or go outside. She was doing better, she said, until April, when gunfire erupted at an Eid al-Fitr celebration she attended with her family in West Philadelphia. The progress she had made emotionally was lost.

Today, she cannot sleep without melatonin because of anxiety, she said, and seeing strangers wearing ski masks, as Carriker did, can send her into a panic. Still, she said, “my life is getting better now.” She is about to start the sixth grade and hopes to join the dance team.

Brown, meanwhile, said she is grateful for the outpouring of community support that enabled her to replace her car, pay off the thousands of dollars in medical bills, and get by a few weeks without working as she and her sons healed.

But challenges remain. About two months after the shooting, the twins’ father, James Ford, was shot and killed by his nephew after a dispute over a car. Then, at the repast following Ford’s funeral, gunfire erupted again. Four people were shot, one fatally. The twins were there and had to dive to the floor with their older siblings.

In time, Brown said, the twins will learn all that 2023 took from them. For now, when Brown shows them a photo of their father, they just say “Dada.”

The boys are still jumpy at loud noises, and are working in speech therapy, Brown said. Sometimes By-Kir will pat the side of his leg, where two scars remain, and say: “Mom, hurt.” On a recent day, Brown asked him what had happened as he held his knee.

“A car,” he said.

The death of DaJuan Brown created a fissure within his already fragile family.

DaJuan, 15, was shot multiple times after he rushed into the street to try to save his best friend, Ryan, who had been shot in the leg by the gunman. As DaJuan ran home to get help, the shooter turned to the teen and opened fire.

DaJuan’s parents and siblings say their days are now clouded by anger, resentment, and sadness. His mother, Nyshyia Thomas, was hospitalized in November after experiencing a mental health crisis related to her grief, she said. She is now on medication and regularly sees a therapist — help she believes other members of her family need but are not yet ready to accept.

DaJuan’s father, Tyejuan Brown, said he’s always on edge. “It’s like I’m waiting for someone to push my buttons,” he said. “I feel trapped. I couldn’t protect my son, and I can’t hurt the person who hurt him.”

Their 20-year-old son, Daquan, bottles up his feelings and avoids his parents, opting to stay in his room or work late.

I feel trapped. I couldn’t protect my son, and I can’t hurt the person who hurt him.

And their 13-year-old, Nesiyah, said she now rides the bus to school alone, and finds it hard to focus in class. Her grades slipped and she is required to attend summer school in July. She started getting into fights. Kids know that her brother is her pressure point, she said, and will often say things about him that trigger her anger.

“They know that’s the only thing that can get under my skin,” she said as she sucked her thumb.

DaJuan was spending the week at his grandparents’ in Kingsessing, where he had a lot of friends, at the time of his death. Thomas was supposed to pick him up the next morning.

I feel like I failed my son as a mother.

That eats away at her, she said. She agonizes over why she didn’t make him come home sooner. She resents DaJuan’s grandmother and can no longer be around Brown’s family without conflict. Thomas believes that, as a nurse, she may have been able to stop his bleeding.

“I feel like I failed my son as a mother,” she said.

She said they’re trying to do better as a family. On a recent day, Thomas, Brown, and their daughter lay together on the couch. Thomas draped herself across their laps, nestling up her daughter, who kissed her cheek and said, “I love you.”

“We are strong,” Thomas said.

Officer Ryan Howell remembers running toward the sound of gunfire. Seeing victims on the ground.

“Body! Body!” Howell shouted, directing colleagues to a victim as he kept running.

“Close the distance,” he told himself, the gunfire echoing closer. Find the shooter. End the chaos.

Sgt. Jeff Donahue and Officer Masoeli Musonge ran alongside Howell toward the shots, using cars as cover.

Musonge and Howell took the gunman into custody that night. They spotted him in a dark alleyway with two guns and arrested him without incident, something 12th District Police Captain Joe Green called “a level of restraint you can’t even measure and evaluate.”

Despite 16 years on the force, Donahue and Musonge said the shooting was like nothing they had ever experienced. They were scared, Donahue said, but on autopilot, steered by the guiding principle of the job: “Preserve life.”

“You just don’t realize what you did until people start telling you what you did,” he said.

Most officers who were on the scene have spoken about it only with one another. It’s easier that way, they said — family and friends who have never done the job will never fully understand.

District leadership ordered all of the officers to go through peer-to-peer counseling, and they say it brought them closer.

“It’s more of a family than coworkers,” Donahue said, and that’s only strengthened their commitment to the job.

Marie Merritt’s youngest son, Lashyd, lurks at the edge of her thoughts. Sudden noises or fireworks jolt her awake at night. She has moved away from the Kingsessing home that she and her family had shared for five years, and tries to keep busy by caring for her six grandchildren.

But it sometimes feels as if her life is in limbo, she said, grief clinging to her and sneaking up at inopportune moments.

I still want my son. I still want him around. I still want to see his smile. I still want to hear his laugh. I still want to see him be happy and just live his life, because that’s what made me happy.

At 21 years old, Lashyd Merritt, known affectionately as “Shyd,’’ had his life mapped out. He had his first real girlfriend, a job at the IRS, a plan to travel the world before settling down and getting married. His mother thinks often of all he could have been.

“I still want my son,” said Merritt. “I still want him around. I still want to see his smile. I still want to hear his laugh. I still want to see him be happy and just live his life, because that’s what made me happy.”

Tamika Veney said family gatherings and holidays feel emptier without Ralph Moralis, her former partner with whom she shares one daughter. Ralph was their “connector,” she said, but from weddings to Christmas morning, a piece is now missing.

Jonah Wamah’s grief interrupts his thoughts and has made it nearly impossible for him to work. His son, Joseph, was his best friend.

Wamah, 70, and his son lived together in their house on South 56th Street for 15 years. They ran a successful wedding photography business, and Joseph, 31, followed in his father’s footsteps as an actor.

Jonah was the one who found his son, riddled with bullets, lying on their living room floor that night. It has been determined that the younger Wamah had been shot nearly two days before by the same gunman.

I’d rather sleep and be dreaming, than wake up in real life.

Wamah has since moved away from Kingsessing, unable to handle being inside the space where he found his son’s body. And his woes worsened when, in September, someone broke into the 56th Street rowhouse and stole thousands of dollars worth of photo and video equipment he and his son used for their business, he said. No one has been arrested, but police continue to investigate.

Wamah now lives in Lansdowne and spends much of his days agonizing over what happened, checking in with police about the burglary and poring over old news articles and conversations with law enforcement about the shooting.

He prefers to retreat to the comfort of dreams, he said, where he still sees his son’s handsome face and hears his smooth voice.

“I’d rather sleep and be dreaming,” he said, “than wake up in real life.”