I scanned through tens of trick-or-treaters traversing through a southwest suburban block on a chilly Halloween afternoon as I tried to spot 7-year-old Zayden Garrett.
Zayden and his uncle had been shot weeks earlier during a family night at the boy’s West Pullman home.
Zayden surpassed doctors’ expectations and was released from Comer Children’s Hospital just over a week after the shooting, but I wasn’t sure what condition he would be in as he fulfilled his wish — collecting candy as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I’d spoken to him by phone but had not yet met him in person.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a young boy strutting from house to house in his ninja turtle costume before seeing familiar relatives smiling at him and knew the boy had to be Zayden.
I first encountered members of Zayden’s family the day after he was shot. I was sent to his neighborhood to knock on his door to learn more about the boy and circumstances surrounding the shooting that wounded him.
There’s always a fine line when approaching family members after a trauma involving a loved one.
In many cases, relatives are present when a shooting happens and are with their loved ones during the last moments of their lives.
They carry not only the emotional burden of losing their family member, but of having to worry about their own safety and of yearning for justice that may never come. When a stranger comes knocking on their door asking if they can relive those traumatic moments hours or days later, it can cause anguish and frustration.
No matter how many times I’ve reached family members reeling from violence, whether by phone or at their door, there’s always a slight knot in my stomach knowing the encounter will be emotionally heavy.
The anxiety sometimes builds up. I’ve been taking melatonin every night to fall asleep since January, when I covered the murders of seven relatives in Joliet.
When I’ve navigated my own grief, I’ve found comfort in being alone. I’d probably hang up or slam the door if a reporter tried to reach me so soon after I was affected by a death — so I don’t take it personally when grieving relatives do it to me.
But I understand the importance of timeliness in telling stories that humanize the toll of gun violence.
Many families find the strength to share their experiences, even in their weakest moments.
I try to be as gentle as I can with them as they give me their time and trust as they juggle funeral and burial preparations. A lot of relatives I’ve spoken to were on their way back from a morgue or funeral home.
As I arrived at the West Pullman home, I approached two women and a man in an arm sling who were also just arriving. (I later learned he was the uncle who had been shot and was just returning from the hospital.)
I asked the woman if they knew the boy who had been shot.
“That’s my nephew,” Kriscelle Bradley, Jayden’s aunt, told me. I asked if she and the other woman — Rosie Liggins, Zayden’s grandmother — would be willing to talk to me about what happened. They reluctantly agreed.
Liggins and Bradley took me through the moments when Liggins said “at least 20 shots from a strong gun” ripped through the home in the 11600 block of South Yale Avenue and into the bodies of the boy and his uncle.
“For 30 seconds, we was in the house, and then they started shooting, and once [my nephew] seen that. … He ran off, and that’s when he had got shot,” Bradley said .
When I asked about Zayden, Liggins and Bradley were cautious about what details to share. They described him as outgoing, happy, smart and helpful, but they declined at first to have his name or photo published for safety concerns.
Zayden Garrett, dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for Halloween, runs to the next house while trick-or-treating with family in Bedford Park.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file
Shortly after my interview with Zayden’s relatives, Sun-Times photographer Anthony Vazquez arrived to the scene, and we knocked on the family’s door to see if they’d allow us to take photos of the damage done to the home.
Liggins nodded as she held open the door for us.
Posters with inspirational words hung throughout the home, including one next to the front door where a bullet hole pierced its message that people in the house should “say please” and “stay positive.”
As Liggins showed us the damage from the gunfire, she discovered a bullet hole in a bedroom farthest from the front door.
“There’s a bullet hole in my baby’s room!” Liggins yelled in shock.
As days passed, tragedy turned to cautious optimism as Zayden recovered from surgeries that removed half of his right lung and the top part of his left lung, as well as parts of the bullet from his chest.
Doctors said Zayden would need to stay in the hospital for roughly a month, but the boy walked out of Comer weeks ahead of schedule and celebrated with his family at a Golden Corral restaurant in Orland Park.
I spoke to him by phone that day.
“I feel good,” Zayden told me. “I want to go trick-or-treating and have a party.”
Zayden got to fulfill his wish on Halloween and zoomed from house to house like the ninja turtle he was dressed up as.
His energetic personality got laughs from everyone around him, me included.
One girl trick-or-treating with Zayden asked him, “How much candy do you have?”
“A whole bunch,” he responded as he held up his green treats bag and patted the bottom.
Zayden’s journey stuck with me.
I’ve covered many homicides throughout the Chicago area in my three years as a journalist, and Zayden’s triumph is a rare feel-good story on a breaking news beat that mostly highlights heartbreak.
The tragic stories are important to tell, informing Sun-Times readers about what the world lost. Zayden’s story is about what the world kept.
I’ve become much better at balancing the emotional weight of writing traumatic stories, but Zayden’s journey was one of the few on the breaking news beat where I didn’t need to decompress after following up on him.
After our stories on Zayden were published, one reader offered to send him candy and a card for Halloween. Another wrote to let me know Zayden’s journey brought tears to his eyes.
Halloween “was the first time I got to meet [Zayden] in person and he was such a ball of energy — he has a certain charm and confidence about him,” I responded to the reader. “All I can hope is that we described him in a way that shows the readers what I was fortunate enough to see .”