La Demoracia residents were hiding in their homes last night as gunshots rang out around 10pm. The night's chaos began with a fire and ended with retaliation that left a young father dead.
And while the victim, 19-year-old Tyreak August, might not have been the one to actually set the fire, he was the gunman's target after the assailant allegedly threatened another teenager, who managed to escape a bullet.
It was a night of mayhem, and, today, Courtney Menzies visited the grieving family and has this story.
Last night, La Democracia turned into a war zone and by the end of the night, a teenage father of one was left dead at the entrance of his home.
The sequence of events started around 8:45pm when a fire tore through this bungalow. According to police reports, the owner of the home, a 21-year-old woman, had stopped living there about a month ago and her mother checked on the home just Wednesday and did not notice anything strange.
After that fire, around 9:50pm, an alleged relative of the home's owner reportedly went into a yard and threatened an 18-year-old man with a gun. The 18-year-old, fearing for his life, ran behind his brother's house to hide.
Shortly after, he heard gunshots and saw the gunman running down the street.
And according to reports, there was a barrage of shots prior to 19-year-old Tyreak August's murder. These reports say that August then went to check on his girlfriend and child in another house in the yard. When he saw that they were unharmed, he returned to this house and that was when the gunman reportedly jumped the fence and fired the single shot that killed him.
And his family believes he was just a casualty in a way that he was not involved in. His little sister said that she still hasn't accepted that her brother is gone.
Voice of: Tyra Nado, Sister of Deceased
"I was in my room."
Courtney Menzies:
"What did you hear?"
Voice of: Tyra Nado, Sister of Deceased
"I heard a pop but I didn't think it was a gunshot, I thought it was a popshot."
Courtney Menzies:
"And so when you ran out, what did you see?"
Voice of: Tyra Nado, Sister of Deceased
"When I came out, my sister in law open the door and I saw my brother run past so I come back in the room and in look through the window and I saw Tyreak on the ground and the police was already here when I came outside. I stood up right there and I start to cry because he wasn't moving, he was just lying there."
"Tyreak, yes he had his anger issues, but even though with all of that, he didn't use to have problems with anybody, he was working. Yesterday he just came from work and he asked me to massage him because he was in pain so I massaged him and he came over here and like it happened fast."
Courtney Menzies:
"And your other brother was telling us that he doesn't like leaving the house."
Voice of: Tyra Nado, Sister of Deceased
"No because they have people that don't really like him that's why he doesn't really go anywhere. To be honest with you I kind of feel like it's not true and he'd just come out of the gate and laugh."
Courtney Menzies:
"Is that something you remember from him, just him being so jovial?"
Voice of: Tyra Nado, Sister of Deceased
"Yes ma'am he always makes jokes and smile up with everybody."
And it's a smile that his 1-year-old daughter will now have to grow up without. v August's mother died back in 2019.
