‘They didn’t know’: Family of slain 14-year-old sympathizes with killer(s)
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The family of a slain 14-year-old is sympathizing with his killer(s).
Mere minutes after seeing Jevario Buie’s body for the first time since being released from the coroner’s office, Buie’s family gave a heartfelt plea.
His grandmother Joquetta Winters broke down in tears Friday saying, “I just can’t believe that he’s gone, they took him away.”
She describes the young teen as goofy, saying he was getting ready to start high school.
Suddenly, a family planning for Buie’s middle school graduation party is left planning his funeral.
Tampa police said the 14-year-old was shot and killed on April 17 in Tampa.
“This was a baby who was murdered at the hands of other babies,” Buie’s grandfather, Michael Baldwin explained.
Nine days later, this family is still without answers.
They’re left not knowing who killed Buie and left him for dead near railroad tracks along Busch Blvd.
“Some of these boys who participated in this didn’t want to be there but they didn’t know how to walk away after a certain point,” Baldwin explained. “They didn’t know how to leave without being teased or picked on themselves.”
Baldwin sympathizes with whoever killed his grandson, saying in a way, he’s been in their shoes. He spent 26 years incarcerated.
“The cats I swore to live and die for, man they ain’t sent me a dime, didn’t write me a single letter,” Baldwin explained. “Them people who murdered Jevario, man, we already forgive them.”
“We already forgive them, because I understand them, because I was them,” he continued.
Baldwin is offering a $1,000 reward, hoping whoever knows who killed his grandson won’t listen to the common phrase ‘snitches get stitches.’
“That’s a trick,” he explained. “That’s a trap.”
“I spent 26 years in the penitentiary myself,” he described. “That used to be one of the beliefs I endorsed, was ‘snitches get stitches’ until it touches my family then it changes the whole ball game.”
Both the family and national organizations like Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety are asking if anyone knows what happened, for them to come forward.
“We have a term we use in our communities that is unfair,” Jamilia Landa, a national survivor fellow with Everytown For Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action said. “It’s called snitching.”
“There’s a difference between snitching and standing on morals and values that we have seen diminish over time,” she continued.
She also sent her understanding and sympathy to the perpetrator(s).
“These are children, 14-, 15 years old,” she explained. “Their brains are not developed enough to understand the magnitude of what they have done, who they took, how they have changed the trajectory of their own lives and their families’ lives.”
“So to those parents, to those community members who know, we ask that you do the right thing and stand up,” she said. “This was a child, a beautiful, loving, caring, gentle child.”
“He was someone’s son, grandson, nephew, [and] community member,” she continued. “We ask that you do the right thing.”
They set up a website for Buie.
You can find out more about him and ways you can report anonymous tips or any audio or video clips here.
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