Shot In Seattle: Che'Reonna Thomas Knew Gun Violence Too Well

SEATTLE, WA – On Aug. 7, Che’Reonna L. Thomas became at least the fifth woman to die by gunfire in Seattle since December 2016. Thomas was out with her boyfriend early in the morning on July 1 when she was shot in the head after getting caught in a gun battle. The person who killed her has not been caught.

About 19 hours after Thomas was shot, Cameron Espitia allegedly shot his wife, Jennifer, 29, in the back of the head in an Uber car in Queen Anne; 13 days before that, Charleena Lyles, 30, was shot seven times by two Seattle police officers and died in her apartment near Magnuson Park; in early May, Kahlani Shabazz, 16, was shot and killed outside Borracchini's Bakery along Rainier Avenue South, likely because the SUV she was driving was a target and just happened to be in it; and in mid-January, My-Linh Nguyen, 45, was shot and killed last December during a robbery along South Warsaw Street – just two blocks northwest of where Thomas was shot on July 1.

For Che’Reonna, the awful thread of gun violence doesn’t end in South Seattle near where My-Linh Nguyen was shot. Thomas died at age 20 – she celebrated her birthday in the hospital after the shooting – having known at least three people who were shot to death, including one of her closest friends.

Thomas was born July 6, 1997, in Seattle. Her mother, Patrice, was born and raised here. Her father, Eugene, is from New Orleans. Patrice Thomas took her daughter to live in that Louisiana city in 1999 to be near family and because she wanted a change.

The Thomas family was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. They lived in the Mid-City neighborhood, which was heavily flooded. Almost half its residents were unable to return after Katrina, including Patrice and Che'Reonna. They fled to Baton Rouge before the storm and were still there one month later when Hurricane Rita swept through the Gulf Coast region one month after Katrina. In fact, Patrice was in a hospital giving birth to her first son during the storm.

With no home to return to in New Orleans, Patrice took her family back to Seattle. When she returned, her boyfriend at the time, Jarrett Bazile, 28, came with her. Two years later in September 2007, Bazile, a Seattle school bus driver, was shot and killed in front of the Thomas home along South Graham Street late one night. Che’Reonna and Patrice were home at the time. Bazile’s killer was never found.

“It was a drive-by,” she told Patch. “They just drove up into the driveway and shot him.”

Two months before Bazile was killed, the father of Patrice's first son, Duane Thomas, was shot and killed in Skyway on June 20, 2007. He was 34.

Two months later, another man Patrice was close to was shot and killed. When Che’Reonna finished at Aki Kurose Middle School in Seattle, she decided to move her family back down south, this time to Houston.

“I liked it down south, and I just wanted to get away,” she said of the move.

They lived in the Alief neighborhood in Houston, which in some ways mirrors the diversity of South Seattle (the 98178 zip code, which includes Rainier Beach, is among the 10 most diverse in the U.S.). There are some 80 different dialects and languages spoken in Alief, according to the Alief School District, and the neighborhood has large black, Asian, and Hispanic populations.

Che’Reonna attended the Houston Can Academy, a charter school founded in the 1976 as Freedom Ministries, which taught juvenile offenders. But the schools mission has changed, and today serves students “who have struggled in a traditional high school setting, in order to ensure their economic independence.”

In 2015, the year Thomas graduated from Can Academy, her friend was shot and killed by her boyfriend, Patrice said. Patrice had moved back to Seattle and allowed Che’Reonna to stay in Houston and finish high school. Che’Reonna wanted to stay in Texas longer after her friend's murder to make sure her friend’s mother was OK, but Patrice wanted her daughter back in Seattle.

Once here, Che’Reonna got a job and lived with her mother in West Seattle. She worked as a barista at Starbucks, Tully’s, and, most recently, at a Specialty’s Coffee shop downtown. She wanted to go to school to study medicine but put off the application process. Her daughter was a typical young girl, Patrice remembers, describing her as “a diva" who loved fashion. Patrice Thomas’ Facebook page is full of selfies taken by Che’Reonna with her friends dressed in coordinated outfits.

“She was Tom Boy, a diva. She got her [Air Jordans], but also her high heels in case we go out to dinner,” Patrice Thomas said.

Che’Reonna missed the South, but she liked Seattle. She liked eating the seafood (her mother’s home-cooking was her favorite) and visiting the water, especially Alki.

On the night she was shot, Che’Reonna was out with her boyfriend hanging at his grandmother’s house. They stopped at the 7-Eleven along Rainier Avenue South as they were heading back to West Seattle. Shortly after that, around 2 a.m., the shooting happened.

According to Seattle police, Che’Reonna and her boyfriend were driving along South Willow Street between Rainier and Martin Luther King Jr. Way and exchanging gunfire with another vehicle.

“Witnesses told officers that two cars were driving through the area at a high rate of speed while the passengers were possibly firing shots at each other. Gang unit detectives are working with witnesses to develop a suspect description at this time,” Seattle police wrote in a blog post about the shooting.

Patrice believes the bullet that hit her daughter was intended for the boyfriend. She doesn’t blame him for the shooting, only the shooter. At around 4 a.m. July 1, the boyfriend called Patrice to tell her what had happened.

“He said, ‘She got shot in the head,’” Patrice remembers.

Che’Reonna was taken to Harborview and doctors removed most of the bullet during surgery. A few destructive fragments were left behind, however. In the month after the shooting, Patrice said, Che’Reonna could talk, and was even moving around in a wheelchair. She was readmitted to the intensive-care unit in early August after doctors discovered a blood clot related to a bullet fragment. A second blood clot formed later that doctors didn’t catch, which is ultimately what killed her.

Che’Reonna was Patrice’s first child and only daughter. She also has three sons – ages 18, 12, and 10 – and a grandson. Che’Reonna was named after a character Patrice created while writing poetry when she was a teenager. When her daughter was born, it seemed like a fitting name, especially since Patrice has a close relative named Che. They were known as Big Che and Little Che.

At Che’Reonna’s funeral earlier in August, her parents made sure there was a New Orleans-style band there, as is tradition at some funerals down south, the place her daughter felt closest to. A couple of weeks after the funeral, Patrice says she has no choice but to press on. Her daughter’s death has absolutely devastated her, but she has a grandson and her sons, and so she has to go on. But there's still that question that comes after every awful shooting, be it Charleena Lyles, Che'Reonna Thomas, or Jennifer Espitia: Why did this happen?

“It’s tragic; she had so much more to do,” Thomas says. “Another mother has to bury their daughter or son behind some foolishness.”

Images courtesy Patrice Thomas