No day of rest for city violence
Brother of slain girl one of 4 Sunday deaths
One of the four people killed on a bloody Super Bowl Sunday in Memphis was the brother of a 15-year-old girl shot to death in her sleep in a drive-by last year.
Cameron Stokes, 25, and an unidentified man were sitting in a car at 5654 Encino Cove in Fox Meadows a little before 8 p.m., police said. Someone apparently opened fire, killing both men. They were found dead in the car.
That marks at lea st t he third member of the Stokes family killed by gunfire, according to records. Around 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day 201 3, older brother Curtis Stokes was found fata lly shot in the front yard of 1354 Getwell. He was 24.
Cateria Stokes, 1 5, was killed in a drive-by shooting around 2 a.m. April 10, 2015, in the 4500 block of Cottonwood. The next day, her brother, Carlos Stokes, attempted to exact revenge, police said, and intentionally shot and killed 7-yearold Kirsten Williams as she played outside. He and three others face first-degree murder charges in the child’s death.
All three Stokes brothers have lengthy arrest records.
Cameron Stokes was arrested in January 2015 and charged with aggravated robbery and attempted seconddegree murder. Those charges were dismissed. On Jan. 29, 2016, Stokes pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment on another charge and was sentenced to time served, or 67 days in jail. Stokes walked free the next day, according to the Shelby County Sheriff ’s Office. He died a week later.
When asked by The Commercial Appeal last year who might have killed his sister, Cameron Stokes said, “My gut feeling, I don’t have no clue. Because I don’t harm nobody. I don’t physically harm any--
one … Ain’t none of my brothers even in no gang. None of us.”
Cameron Stokes was just one of four people killed over a period of about eight hours Sunday.
The tally brings the number of 2016 homicides to 27, nearly double the 14 reported by this time last year, police said. Of those 2016 killings, two involved preg- nant women, and their unborn children are included in that tally. One also happened in 1986, but the victim died this year, police said, and that death is being investigated as a homicide.
Sunday’s mayhem began around noon in the 3500 block of Gowan in Frayser. Police said two people were standing in a driveway when they noticed two men walking north on the street toward them. They heard gunshots and ran for cover, but one was fatally wounded.
The next homicide also happened in Frayser, where officers were flagged down shortly after 6:30 p.m. by a woman on Frayser Boulevard near Range Hills Drive. The woman told police her son had been stabbed and was in her vehicle.
Officers, and later paramedics, administered first aid to the 15-year-old victim, but he died at the scene.
No one had been arrested in any of Sunday’s homicides.