Posted on 01/03/2015 5:21:14 PM PST by digger48
HAMMOND | A mother grieved as her second son was gunned down in less than a month, this time an engineering student at Vincennes University who was home on winter break.
Hammond authorities are investigating the shooting death of 19-year-old Donnovan Williams, a Highland resident who had been the first in his family to go to college but ended up the first victim of homicide in Northwest Indiana this year.
Early on New Year's Day, Williams was shot at 1235 Wilson Place in Hammond, and later died at Community Hospital in Munster.
The recent graduate of Morton High School in Hammond had been at a house party where two other college students, one a fellow Vincennes University student, were wounded by gunfire, aunt Andrea Wright said. One is still in the hospital, and the other has been released, she said.
"He's a young kid, a good kid who's never been in trouble," Wright said. "He was trying to get his life started. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, at a party he shouldn't have gone to."
Hammond police did not release any additional information about the homicide. Lt. Richard Hoyda said detectives may be hesitant to provide the public with more details because of safety concerns.
Williams just mourned the loss of his older brother, Hammond resident Dominique D. Wright, 25, who was fatally shot multiple times on Interstate 80/94 near Cline Avenue on Dec. 4.
Police said Wright was exchanging gunfire on the highway with East Chicago resident Terrill K. Fenderson, 37, who was found dead from gunshot wounds the next morning in a Hammond alley. According to court records, Wright had been involved in another 2012 shooting on I-80/94 that stemmed from a feud between residents in East Chicago's Harbor and Calumet neighborhoods.
Wright was a machinist at a Hammond factory who had just welcomed a child into the world eight months earlier and was attending Ivy Tech classes online to try to better himself, Andrea Wright said. She said she believed Williams' death was unrelated.
"He was home from college and just got caught up in a horrible incident," she said. "His mother has lost two sons. They just buried Dominique, and he was home on break trying to console her."
Mother Melissa Williams, a Highland resident, is distraught after losing both her sons, one right after the other, Wright said. She also has a daughter.
Williams had been a bright kid and good student who was quick to smile and had a lot of friends, Wright said. He enjoyed playing basketball with his brother and worked at hhgregg in Merrillville during his high school years. His family was extremely proud he went off to college and hoped he could escape the area, she said.
"He was a loving, supportive young man with a bright future ahead of him," she said. "He was warm, funny, and affectionate. He loved to give hugs. College had always been a goal for him. He was just trying to get his life started."
The family just had to bury Wright and has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help with Williams' funeral expenses.
To donate, visit gofundme.com/dwilliams.
Looks like a nice kid, really tragic.
Probably shot for acting too white.
sure been a lot of black “good kids” doing a lot of bad stuff, or being in bad places.
black community has a different definiton of “good” than the rest of the country.
Sad. Where’s Al Sharpton here?
Slugs for thugs often find the wrong target but never the lifestyle.
As the article says, sounds like he went to the wrong party, with his boyhood friends. And they probably resented his new life.
To donate, visit gofundme.com/dwilliams.
I’ll pass, thank you.
One of these days, blacks are going to learn to not hang out with blacks.
What a senseless tragedy.
Wright...who had just welcomed a child into the world (No mention of widow)
No mention of either father to the sons
Amen.
You make an excellent point. If you want to be a successful and decent person, choose your company carefully, no matter your skin color.
Yeah, but this particular black kid looks like a really good guy. Too bad he was killed, he might have actually made a difference.
As some other poster commented, he may have been “too white.”
Hammond is a cesspool, btw, all the harder for a boy to grow up and make something of himself. I hope the killer gets the chair.
Just call me a cynic. Been there, heard that; dozens of times before.
I hope I'm wrong, but it's a black thing, usually.
Looks like I made the right guess from the name.
Not funding Wright, the tough, now dead brother. This is for Donavan, the apparently good kid trying to make something of himself.
Yes, but it is also a whole lot easier for a genuinely good black kid to get too close to the bad side of their neighborhood, school, etc.
i spent a year in griffith. some nice people there, but it was the only place we lived where we were robbed.
Through internet begging and "crowd funding", she'll probably get enough for 10 funerals.
My son-in-law, age 32 died a few years ago, heart attack, leaving a wife and three children, no life insurance, (his and my daughter's fault). I paid almost $9,000 out of my pocket. 'Course my daughter, son-in-law and I are all white.
(And yes, I'm thankful that I had the money to do it).
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