18th Tacoma Homicide of 2023: Shawn Joyner

Shawn Joyner had worked as a logger and hot tub repair tech. He was 45-years-old. Friends called him ‘Spida’. He was a fiercely loyal friend and funny as hell. He smiled and laughed often.

Just after midnight on August 15, 2023 Shawn was in the 1400 block of Ernest K. Brazil Street when he encountered a 19-year-old man with a gun. It’s not known what words if any were exchanged before the man shot Shawn multiple times.

Police arrived on the scene shortly afterword and attempted life-saving procedures, but the fire department pronounced him dead shortly after they arrived. Police did an area search and found the man suspected of shooting Shawn. He had a criminal history of firing off a gun in a park a couple of months earlier.

All too often when a Black man is shot and killed on Tacoma’s Hilltop it barely makes the news. The media largely ignores homicides like this which makes writing articles like this one both more important and more difficult.

This is why I rely on family and friends who knew Shawn to share thoughts and memories of him if they feel like doing so.

- Jack Cameron

NOTE: Anyone using the comment section to disparage a man who is already dead will be blocked and banned from this site permanently.

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