25th Tacoma Homicide of 2022: Iyana Ussery
It was two days after the 4th of July, 20222 just after 11:30am when 14-year-old Iyana Ussery and five friends pulled into the parking lot of the Speed E Mart convenience store on South 19th Street in her mother’s Dodge Charger. One boy got out of the Charger and flashed gang signs at a white sedan as he walked into the store. The boy returned minutes later after buying some snacks. They then drove across the street to Ezell’s Chicken near South 19th and MLK Way. Two 17-year-olds in the white sedan got out and started shooting at the Dodge firing a total of five shots. One shot hit the door window of Ezell’s chicken.
Iyana and her friends drove away from the shooters arriving minutes later at house on South 19th and Ainsworth. It was there that they discovered Iyana had been hit in the torso by one of the bullets. They called for medical aid, but Iyana Ussery was dead by the time they arrived becoming the 25th Tacoma homicide of 2022.
The two young men responsible for Iyana’s murder were arrested the next day.
It should be noted that there is absolutely no evidence that Iyana had any connection whatsoever to gangs. Her friend who flashed the gang sign belonged to a rival gang of the two who opened fire on the car full of teenagers.
Iyana was just the latest victim during a week where over a dozen people were shot in various violent incidents throughout the city. Back in the early 1990s, the Hilltop neighborhood where Iyana was killed was notorious for gang violence. In the early 2000s violent crime went down in Hilltop and the rest of the city. But in recent years, violent crime has been on the rise and Hilltop’s old reputation is returning.
The senselessness of the reckless murder of a 14-year-old girl cannot be overstated. And the theft of her life is something those who knew her will never forget. Friends say she was incredibly kind. We never get to know what that kindness would have blossomed into in the years to come. Tacoma is robbed of that Tacoma story and we are all the poorer for it.
Iyana’s family has started a GoFundMe that is still active and has not yet met its goal. If you have the means, please consider this direct method of helping her family.
As always, the comment section is reserved for those who knew the victim and would like to share thoughts or memories of her.
- Jack Cameron
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