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[spacey music]
- ♪ MTV
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[gunfire]
- Come on. Lay down.
Your hair gon' get messed up.
This your time, boy.
Y'all ready? - Okay.
- Here we go.
All right, look at me. Count of three.
One...
two.
One...
two.
All right, cool. Sit on it.
There you go. There you go, perfect.
You got your bush together?
You good? You sure?
A'ight, do me a favor. Do like that.
Perfect. Ready?
One, two.
Close your eyes. You just got shot.
- [screams]
- ♪ Nobody on the street perfect ♪
♪ Don't wind up on a T-shirt ♪
♪ Ey, we hurtin'
♪ We out here and we nervous ♪
♪ Ain't nobody on the street perfect ♪
♪ Man, don't wind up on a T-shirt ♪
- ♪ No more T-shirts - ♪ Uh
- ♪ No more "rest in peace" T-shirts ♪
- ♪ Come on - ♪ No more T-shirts
- ♪ No more "rest in peace" T-shirts ♪
- ♪ Come on - ♪ No more T-shirts
- ♪ No more "rest in peace" T-shirts ♪
- ♪ Uh, uh, uh
- Mommy already know that.
This--Mommy already know that.
[indistinct chatter]
- Say that again.
- Is it supposed to say anything on here?
- Mm, I think I asked him.
- "Long live Baby Bro" or just "Baby Bro."
"Long live Baby Bro."
- Yeah, like, on the side of it.
- All right.
- I watched him grow up, actually.
Like, Baby Bro is-- that's really who he was
was Baby Bro.
It was maybe four or five of his friends
playing on a Sunday-- and Sunday morning time--
and they were chased, and he was shot,
and he died,
so it's a really deep pill to swallow.
- Why?
- What?
- Yes.
[somber music]
♪
- I started out as a photographer...
♪
And from there
started doing the shirts...
♪
"Rest in peace" shirts.
It's about 70% to 80% of our business.
♪
Mostly people that comes in,
they're coming in for someone that was shot
in the local community.
♪
Guns, stabbings, drugs...
♪
We see everything.
♪
Here in this area, it's really bad.
♪
Some days, it feels more like I'm at a funeral home.
- Back. - Oh, just the picture?
- Yeah, just the picture gonna be on the back.
Or for his with that one, you can't put no wings on it?
I just seen the wings up there. Can you drop the wings?
- Yeah, so you want all on front and back?
- All on front and back,
so you ain't got to do all that extra.
[printer whirring]
- A lot of families that come in,
they're going through hard times.
Their loved one just passed away.
- Y'all be safe and have a good day.
Thank y'all for the...
- I'll say, "Hey, let's do $8 a shirt.
You charge everyone $20."
The funeral costs $10,000.
Until they raise it, they'll keep selling shirts.
[indistinct chatter]
So I made it like this.
So "Gone too soon but never forgotten,"
"Rest in Paradise," and then you put "Makiyah."
- Okay.
- It's cool? - Yep, that's perfect.
Makiyah was more, like, tomboy.
She didn't want to take pictures
and stuff like that, but I used to get
my own pictures and take 'em.
[camera shutter snapping]
It was just a regular drive-by shooting.
♪
She was on her way to the ice cream truck
with her big sister.
♪
She was right in front of the house,
and she was shot in her heart, and she passed away that day.
♪
It happens daily, constantly.
♪
Even to the children, it's something
that now you get used to.
You hear shots and you be like, "Okay, wow, get down."
You know, "Run."
The kids are even used to that.
But Makiyah, she just couldn't get away fast enough that day.
This is never gonna be okay-- never in life.
That's my baby.
[sobbing]
She was only ten years old.
[sirens wailing]
[printer whirring]
With hers, it was so drastic
because it was so many shots fired.
It was 70 rounds' shell casing that they found
when my daughter was killed.
Every event that we do for Makiyah,
we always have to have the T-shirts on.
♪
So I've ordered a lot of T-shirts.
♪
Will that make it stop?
It was a million murders after my child,
you get what I'm saying?
So I don't know, but I'm definitely trying my best
to be able to send a message to stop this gun violence.
♪
Especially with these babies, it's beyond ridiculous.
- You have a good one, okay? - All right, see you next time.
- All right.
♪
Bye. - Bye.
♪
- Hi. - How you doing?
♪
- There is four shops in our mall by itself,
four T-shirt shops in one mall.
The demand is so high that there's another mall
five minutes away; they have two shops.
Yeah, it's great for business,
but it's not great for our people.
♪
Here in the city, there is something
called Murder Mayhem.
Murder Mayhem is, like, the number one place.
They're better than the news.
The news is not gonna report what they're reporting.
♪
First thing I do every day, look on Murder Mayhem,
and you see it.
♪
Meaning if someone got shot a hour ago,
it's on they page within the next 20 minutes.
♪
This is two teens that was shot by the police,
ages 15 and 16 years old.
So you find out about the shootings
within a day or two, sometimes instantly.
This young man was shot around 8:48 p.m.
Officers found him unresponsive,
so he was pronounced dead.
He was only 24.
So between today and tomorrow,
we'll start seeing people come in
because they'll be getting ready
for his candlelight vigil.
- They located one adult male
suffering from a gunshot wound.
- Just, like, 13-year-old victim
identified, killed-- weekend double shooting.
So we'll see families come in today
getting T-shirts.
Most likely, his funeral will be tomorrow.
[gunshots]
♪
- When I heard about the shooting,
I feel like my whole world just turned upside down.
Malachi, him and a group of friends
were on their way to the basketball court,
and some people hopped out of the car
and just started shooting at him.
He was 13, and he was going to be 14 a couple days later.
♪
I wrote a paragraph for him for his birthday
and was hoping to put it on a card and, you know,
take it to him, but once I found out
what happened to him, I was just like,
"Now what am I supposed to do with this?"
♪
I had--literally had just seen him,
and the last words we exchanged was, "Be safe."
And he said, "Always."
- What's up, Jon? - Hey, baby, how are you?
- Good. How are you?
- I'm fine.
[indistinct chatter]
- Yes.
- Get there early. - Yeah, that's exactly--
And it was probably packed when you got there.
[laughter]
- Did you go to school with him?
- Yeah, we all went to school with him.
- Where? - Global.
- Global, okay, so after Global,
he came to Paul? - Mm-hmm.
Yeah, he was at Paul for a little minute.
- Mm-hmm. - Malachi?
- March 1st.
- You fine with that?
All right, I just gotta make sure.
I gotta make sure, you know.
Some people be tripping.
[indistinct chatter]
- I lost my little brother, my great-uncle,
and my uncle all in the same year...
And then suffered depression
and still kind of going through it and, you know,
trying to fight my way through it.
- It was, like, funeral after funeral after funeral.
- Mm-hmm. - Cool?
- But his birthday-- his birthday is...
March 5th, so... - 3/5.
- Mm-hmm. - What year?
- 2006.
- 3/5, 1/20, '06.
- Mm-hmm. - That's right?
- Mm-hmm.
[indistinct chatter]
- So I'm glad she put her heart over that middle finger.
- Oh, yeah.
- 'Cause I didn't like that picture at all.
Long live Mals.
- [sobbing]
- So, like, which one you making me?
- I don't want to see you too soon
for this type of reason, but I'll see you soon.
See you guys at the funeral tomorrow.
- See you. - All right.
- Drive safe. - Thank you too.
- You gonna be all right.
[laughter]
[indistinct chatter]
♪
- Malachi, we really connected when we was in eighth grade.
♪
We used to always bond. Like, that was my best friend.
♪
And then when I hear that he passed away,
I was just really sad.
♪
It brought me back to what happened to me.
♪
July 4th was my two-year anniversary.
Like, I was at my friend cookout,
and I just was having a good time at the cookout, and...
I got shot.
♪
I'm 13.
I was 11 years old.
♪
- I guess they heard some pow, pow.
They thought it was fireworks.
Then she had a hole in her face
where blood was leaking,
and when I got to the scene, I asked the police officer,
you know, "What kind of firework would have done that?"
He said, "Mom, that wasn't a firework."
He said, "That was a GSW."
And I thought about it for a minute--
gunshot wound.
So that's how I knew my child was shot in the face.
♪
- I just fell, and then I started holding my jaw.
♪
And I was really scared.
It went in right here. It cracked my teeth.
And it came out right here.
♪
And now I gotta get reconstructive face surgery,
and I gotta get plastic surgery on the side of my neck.
♪
- Behind the scenes, you really don't know
what happens to people after they've been shot
by a gun.
It's really hectic at home sometimes.
She gets headaches.
And it's a really big change from the child that I know.
- I get real sad 'cause I'll be like, "Why me?"
Like, what did I do so bad
for you to shoot a 11-year-old girl?
♪
- I'm kind of twisting and turning at night.
Like...
♪
I fear for myself as being African American.
♪
Am I gonna be safe going to school,
coming home from school?
♪
- Young man, 11 years old, shot while watching fireworks
in southeast D.C.
And then you just hear the sounds.
- [crying] He was a good kid.
I mean, he was, like, God, 11 years old.
He hasn't lived his life yet. He's 11 years old.
We gotta stop killing each other.
Stop it. Put the guns down.
- That kid, he could've been the next NFL player.
He could've been anything in the world,
anything.
♪
He's gone.
♪
It's just--it's just crazy.
Then you go and you look at my screen.
Like, it's me and my son.
What if that was my son? How would I feel?
♪
Sonny!
♪
Why did you need to talk to me?
- Copy.
- It's "Sesame Street"? - Yes.
- So everybody getting Bourbon Street--
"Sesame Street"? - That's what they said.
- My son, he's ten years old.
He call hisself the owner.
- What time you opening tomorrow?
[indistinct chatter]
- He believes that this will be his shop one day.
- [grunts] - Push!
- I am.
- Acting weak.
The thing is, how do I explain to my son
these people having to put they ten-year-old kid
onto a shirt,
they 11-year-old kid to a shirt?
How do I explain that to my son?
What do I say?
[siren wailing]
[dramatic music]
I grew up in the hood,
and I'm scared to go back to the hood.
♪
Growing up, it was you go outside;
they doing double Dutch.
People was like family.
Right now, you don't have that.
You don't have as many playgrounds
as we had growing up.
♪
We have people that's raised in poverty.
A lot of people wake up angry
just because of the communities they live in.
There's a lot of mental health issues
and how people don't have things
to help them change.
And it just keeps going.
[somber music]
♪
[indistinct chatter]
♪
- At first, I didn't want to believe it
until I actually started wearing the jacket.
Now it's like, "He's really gone."
♪
- Malachi, Makiyah, Woosie.
It's a lot of people,
and it's sad how they don't get to live
and get a second chance at life like I did.
[indistinct chatter]
- Put your strap down, babe.
- I wasn't glad to be wearing the T-shirt
with him on it 'cause I don't want my friend
to be on no T-shirt.
[gospel music playing, choir singing indistinctly]
♪
[soft dramatic music]
♪
- Early death is an everyday thing.
♪
But growing up, it was always, "You can't shoot women.
You can't shoot kids."
♪
Now it's, "No, we're just going in the community
and we're just shooting at anyone."
♪
Like, when do it stop?
♪
- So try and get him--
- Yeah, let him-- let him be him.
Just let him--yeah. Let him rock out.
Be fine.
All right, you ready? Look at me, Ma.
One, two.
- Hey, look at you!
Ace, Ace.
- Look who's turning one.
[camera shutter snapping]
♪
- All right. - All righty, guys.
- Thank you so much.
♪
- I shield my son from a lot of things,
but when he get older, how can I protect him
in the streets where you never know
when something's gonna happen?
♪
- My friend died a week ago from gun violence.
- On the background, want it-- want it to say anything?
- He was 19.
♪
I don't want to see a trophy, but it's like,
those T-shirts show you that your heart is
and will forever be with that person.
♪
He's actually having a candle lighting tonight.
♪
In this community, it's wild
'cause you never know when you might go.
I can get pulled over for not using my turn signal,
and I can die.
On the other side, you have gunfire
or people robbing people, shooting people for no reason,
but at the end of the day, murder is murder.
All right, man, you have a good day, okay?
- Thanks. Will do, man. All right.
♪
- This is not my first "RIP" shirt.
I have plenty.
- The month of June alone, there was a dramatic increase
in murders and shootings.
Murders were up 286%,
and shootings were up 193%.
- Gun violence is adding to the heavy toll
facing many communities of color
already being hammered by the coronavirus.
Gun violence is a public health crisis
like coronavirus.
- Me, personally, it's hard to see
the number of Black victims from gun violence
and dealing with COVID-- serious COVID infections
that are coming to the hospital because that just indicates
that there is root causes to these inequities
that are being unmasked by the virus.
♪
- Stress is terrifying,
especially in the Black community.
♪
It's like having a bad dream, but it becomes reality,
and it happens every single day.
♪
- Living in this area, the D.C. area,
where I've been for 48 years, there's really no safety.
♪
There's probably not a lot of employment.
A lot of kids aren't completing school,
where they don't have the education to move on
and do better things in their lives.
♪
- My mother, she rarely want me
to go outside anymore because she's afraid
something bad might happen to me.
- It's really hitting home here with us,
and the deaths are coming too fast.
♪
- Like, I just hope this world get better,
'cause this world is crazy.
♪
- Some nights, I don't sleep.
Some nights, I'm up hours and hours and hours.
[printer whirring]
I try not to think about it once I leave.
Once I leave from work, I try not to let it get to me.
[printer whirring]
So I might make a shirt today.
They told me something happened yesterday.
And it's just like, what happened?
♪
That could've been my kid
walking to the ice cream truck,
my cousin, my mom.
This could have been me.
♪
- Black lives matter!
crowd: Black lives matter!
- Black futures matter!
crowd: Black futures matter!
- Black futures!
crowd: Black futures!
- Things are not gonna change no time soon.
I don't see it.
♪
So I want to speak to people in a different way.
♪
By me being a photographer,
you can tell a story different.
People can see it.
We can put it on social media.
We can do all types of things.
♪
Like, I really want to put it all together.
♪
- Okay, we're ready. Can I have her now?
- All right, so we're gonna do bullet hole here,
a bullet hole, like, right here.
- Okay.
♪ How do I
♪ Say good-bye
- Put your hand on her shoulder.
Perfect. One more. One.
- Okay.
Yeah.
- Count of three. Three, two.
Lay down.
Your hair gon' get messed up. This your time, boy.
- Okay.
- Just let it be. Let it go.
Perfect, let's go. Ready?
You sad, Malia.
Use your other hand. Like, look at her.
Like, don't look at me.
- Pull. - Pull.
Grab--grab her shirt. - Like this.
Twist it like this. - Ready?
Like, go drop into her... - Yeah.
- Your eyes shouldn't be open at all.
- [sobbing]
- People are gonna think this is so real,
so you have to make this work.
- Think about me getting shot.
How would you be feeling?
What's your emotion as you see me laying on the ground?
- One...
two.
- [screams]
- Damn, this look too real. Look.
I'm sorry.
♪
People are gonna be able
to see this from a different point of view.
This is real.
This is really happening in all communities.
♪
Rub 'em together. We'll get the blood out.
Once you get in the shower, it's gonna start coming out.
Just keep rubbing your hands together
like you washing 'em.
- It's already coming out.
- You gotta keep rubbing 'em together.
Keep rubbing 'em.
Gotta keep going
till you come back to your color.
♪
- The fighting, the bullets--
I'm not making excuses for the people
that are using guns, but I personally think
that a lot of people just have a lot of pent-up aggression.
- Kayden, wipe your face.
♪
Not like that. Like, at the top.
- We are a community, and I hope that
by the time I am an adult,
our world will be better where my future children
won't have to fear for their lives.
♪
[go-go music playing]
- ♪ Washington, D.C.
♪ New York City
♪ Chicago
♪ Los Angeles
♪ Atlanta, Georgia
♪ In every city and hood in America right now ♪
♪ Somebody's buying a "rest in peace" T-shirt ♪
♪ Let's stop this killing us right now ♪
♪ Yeah - ♪ Dreams turn to nightmares
♪ You gotta know your worth
♪ Tired of seeing our sisters and brothers ♪
♪ On a "RIP" T-shirt
♪ Sweet dreams turn to nightmares ♪
♪ And you know we hurt
♪ Tired of seeing our sisters and brothers ♪
♪ On a "rest in peace" T-shirt ♪
- ♪ How you doing? Take 'em to the hood ♪
♪
- ♪ Ey, we hurtin'
♪ Ain't nobody on the street perfect ♪
♪ We out here
♪ And we nervous
♪ Man, don't wind up on a T-shirt ♪
- ♪ No more T-shirts - ♪ Yeah
- ♪ No more "rest in peace" T-shirts ♪
- ♪ Worldwide, around the whole world ♪
- ♪ No more T-shirts - ♪ Gotta stop killing us
- ♪ No more "rest in peace" T-shirts ♪
- ♪ Every city in America - ♪ No more T-shirts
- ♪ Let's stop these "rest in peace" T-shirts ♪
- ♪ No more "rest in peace" T-shirts ♪
- ♪ 'Cause we killing us - ♪ No more T-shirts
- ♪ Let's get out and do it, baby ♪
- ♪ No more "rest in peace" T-shirts ♪
♪
- We just gotta let 'em know. - Absolutely.