He was gunned down in the streets at noon yesterday and this morning at 4:00, 20-year-old shooting victim Sherwin Locke died at the KHMH. Locke had been shot twice in the head on Lawrence Avenue; he was in the area returning video game CDs to a friend. Yesterday his family would not comment on the shooting. But today they called us to say they needed to clarify the life and troubled times of the young man who they claim has been wrongfully vilified in the media.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
The execution-style killing of 20-year-old Sherwin Locke has left his family grieving, smoldering with rage and stumped for answers. His girlfriend Tanisha Requena says the family is yet to understand why he was killed.
Tanisha Requena, Girlfriend of Deceased
"That's just what we wanted to ask the people who had done it, why why because so many times the names that we are hearing that did this crime, they live in this same vicinity, they live in this same area and they see him each day. So I think...I don't know, I honestly don't know. I don't know if it is a setup or what but that is what I want to know: why, why did you pick now to do it. If they wanted to kill him they had the perfect opportunity from many times back you understand but why now."
But as the family questions the motive for the killing they are disturbed by the public portrayal of Locke. To us he's known as a troubled youth who's had numerous run-ins with the police but the family today explain that he was just caught up.
Tanisha Requena,
"None of those crimes that Sherwin Locke was, that he was involved in, he was convicted of and most of them he was involved in due to the company that he kept. If anyone around here knows now that Sherwin doesn't even have a real friend. He only hangs out with one fella. He doesn't have any friends and then to bring up those past. If you go to the police station and you ask them for
a police record of Sherwin Locke there isn't any record for him.
The case that they are talking about that was recent, that was thrown out, the judge apologized to them for holding them for so long for they were wrongly accused and now the media comes and mentioning these cases. What does that have to do with him now, the present life that he is living and that's what me and the family members of Sherwin Locke are very upset about. Worse now that he is dead and then all of that, for the public to have a negative thought about him and maybe other people might be thinking all sorts of things and that is what's hurting us who are left behind.
It is just the company that he has kept. Most of the times when those things arise, it is because of the company who they catch first and then they say Sherwin is usually with so they grab Sherwin too. Majority of the time it is not true. And that was his intention when coming out but we all said he is already out and we will call it off because he was going to the media and he was going to publicly announce and let the people know that this is not his him, most of the things he was accused about is because of the company he kept. Now he wipes off company, doesn't have any friends and now someone still comes and takes his life."
Locke's grandmother says Locke's life was taken in a cowardly manner.
Grandmother of Deceased,
"I did not wanted this to happen to him, not in this state. Die normally but not by gunshots. In this state for him to die that way I don't think he deserved it, not in that state."
He was run down and shot on Lawrence Avenue in the middle of the morning in plain view. Today Sherwin Locke's mother Paulette Gentle appealed for witnesses to come out an help the police in their investigations.
Paulette Gentle, Mother of Deceased
"All I want is to ask the people who saw because it is an area where so many houses area, where so many people were out and it is like nobody doesn't want to go to the station to witness and thing. All I am asking is for them to please try to go the station and give some kind of statement and help out in whatever way and thing so that we could have more evidence against those three persons who they have hold."
Police have arrested 28-year-old Altreed Williams and he appeared in Magistrate's Court today where he was charged with murder. He was remanded to the Hattieville Prison until April 23rd.
