On Sunday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: It hardly feels remarkable any more to talk about gun violence. It’s been the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. since 2020. According to the Gun Violence Archive, 2023 has seen nearly 37,000 deaths from gun violence. According to the Washington Post, there have been 35 mass killings so far this year. In a world with more guns than people, a lot of lives can end up in the shadows. That’s why we have people like Jose Quezada, aka Coach. USA TODAY National Columnist Suzette Hackney has been writing about Coach, a gun violence activist and others, and joins The Excerpt to share her reporting in this moving conversation.

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Dana Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, November 19, 2023.

It hardly feels remarkable any more to talk about gun violence. It’s been the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. since 2020. According to the Gun Violence Archive, 2023 has seen nearly 37,000 deaths from gun violence. According to the Washington Post, there have been 35 mass killings so far this year. In a world with more guns than people, a lot of lives can end up in the shadows. And that's why we're supposed to have people like Jose Quezada, also known as Coach. USA Today National Columnist Suzette Hackney has been writing about Coach, a gun violence activist and joins us now to share her reporting. Thanks for joining me, Suzette.

Suzette Hackney:

Thank you for having me.

Dana Taylor:

Okay. So Suzette, tell us about Coach. How did he become a gun violence activist and what happened to him?

Suzette Hackney:

Coach Jose Quezada, I would characterize him as an anti-violence advocate. He grew up in Wilmington, California, which is just outside of Los Angeles. That community has two rival gangs that have been active for decades. Most of the crime in Wilmington can be attributed to those gangs. Jose grew up there and around those gangs. His father passed away when he was 11. But before he died, he always encouraged his son to play sports because that was a way to keep him on a straight path. And then after his father died, he had other role models in his life that encouraged the same. So Jose grew up loving sports, loving basketball, loving football, and he started coaching it when he was around 18 years old. Like his father, he believed that sports could keep kids off of the streets, help them avoid the pitfalls of gangs and guns.

And then sadly on July 27th, he was volunteering at the Summer Night Lights event. It is an event that the Los Angeles Police Department partners with the Parks and Recs department to organize these events in local parks all across the region. It's a way that they try to address violence that often spikes during the summer months. There's movie nights, there's sports that they can play, there are bands and other entertainment, all kinds of cool things just to keep kids occupied. So Jose was volunteering for that on the 27th, and he was a cook. He loved to grill, and so he always volunteered to grill. So he was there grilling, and his family was there, his wife was there, his oldest son was there. His youngest son was in the recreation center, which is right next to the park, playing basketball.

And it was getting toward the end of the night, Jose had finished barbecuing. He had packed up his utensils and such and put them in his car and he told his wife that he would be right back. He was going to go over to the park and talk to the fellas. And that's what he called his friends, the fellas. And so he was out there talking to the fellas, and apparently there was someone shooting from across the alley and Jose was struck once in the head and killed. He was 46 years old.

Dana Taylor:

Stories about gun violence have become so normalized, it's hard to break through the noise. What was it about Coach that drew you to his story?

Suzette Hackney:

Truly, it was his humanity. He was a regular Joe, and I mean that even literally because his nieces and nephews called him Uncle Joe. He was just so giving of himself. He wanted to try to make the corner of his world a little bit brighter. He wanted to inspire kids to dream and know that they could have a better life than running the streets or getting involved in a criminal activity. And there was so much joy that he seemed to get from giving. He told his wife, "Honey, I bless to be blessed. This is what I do. And you never know, one day I might need it. This brings me joy."

Dana Taylor:

Well, Suzette, you wrote about other gun violence activists for this series. Who were they and what stood out to you the most?

Suzette Hackney:

I wrote two other pieces. One out of Indianapolis and the victim there, his name was Coach Donnell Hamilton, better known as Coach Nell. In high school, he was a standout football player, got a scholarship to go to college. And then when he was in college, he started running with some of the wrong crowd, got involved in selling drugs, and had some gun activity and such. And ended up losing his scholarship and going to prison for a couple of years. When he got out of prison, he went back to Indianapolis and started a youth football league. His sons were of the age where they were playing football and he wanted to coach. And that's how it started. He wanted to coach his boys, but then more and more he saw the community needing mentors, the kids needing mentors. And so he put together this league Little Tikes all the way until eighth grade and was successful for many, many years.

And he, unfortunately, lost his life in a road rage incident, an apparent road rage incident. They have not caught the person who killed him. And then I went to Seattle in April. There was a young man there, his name was Elijah Lewis. And Elijah was also killed during a road rage incident. He was driving his nephew to a monster truck a bit, and he clipped a guy who was on a scooter in broad daylight in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. This man pulled out a gun and shot him. Elijah's story is interesting because he started his anti-gun advocacy at such a young age. He was still in high school when he started speaking about gun violence. It was after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. And a bunch of students around the country were gathering and protesting and saying, "We deserve to be safe in our schools." And he was very outspoken in that area. And from that, it just seemed to light a fire under him, and he became this very young activist in Seattle up until the day he died.

Dana Taylor:

What do you think these people had in common with each other?

Suzette Hackney:

It was important to them to leave a stamp on their communities and on younger generations. They always talked about, it's about the kids. We've got to raise these kids, we've got to teach them, we've got to get them. Coach Nell, in particular, always said, "I have to reach them. We can't wait until high school. It's too late by then."

Dana Taylor:

One of the most recent mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, left 18 people killed, dozens injured. That town is still reeling from the loss. Maine is also politically conservative, is a fierce proponent of the Second Amendment. In your experience, do incidents like this persuade people to change their minds about gun legislation?

Suzette Hackney:

I do not think so. I think that people become more aware of these issues. I don't necessarily think that it's going to change a lot of minds. I mean, we hear all the time, if we didn't change our minds after Sandy Hook, if we don't have more legislation to talk about gun control after those babies were killed, what's going to change? I've been getting a lot of feedback today. We need to hope people understand that, as I said at the top, we're in this together. We have to do this together. We all have to work to convince people that this gun violence, this violence, this is not the way that we need to focus our energy. We need to focus our energy on mentoring and trying to teach kids, guns is not the answer.

Dana Taylor:

There's a new study out from Princeton University, and it found that many states across the US implemented more restrictive gun loss from 1991 to 2016. And that coincided with gun related deaths falling sharply. What do activists you interviewed say about legislation and what do they see as alternatives if policies fail to pass?

Suzette Hackney:

There's a level of frustration among activists because there are states like California for example. I mean, they've already had stringent gun laws in California. And two months after Jose died, Governor Gavin Newsom signed more bills into law. A lot of activists are saying this needs to go to the state level. The states need to take more control when it comes to gun issues. And there are even mayors across the country now who are fighting to allow state legislators to give them control of certain gun laws. So they're saying, we can do this better on our own instead of waiting for the state to do something or waiting for the federal government to do something.

Dana Taylor:

Well, there've been quite a few gun control activists who've launched campaigns to run for office like Representative Maxwell Frost, Nabeela Syed, and Joe Vogel. David Hogg, who's a survivor of the Parkland School shooting and founder of March for Our Lives has just launched a pact to support young candidates who support liberal policies. Do you think this movement holds promise for folks who want to see stricter gun legislation?

Suzette Hackney:

I believe so. We are getting to a tipping point in this country. I think that we're seeing... With a lot of these issues, not just gun control, but abortion. We're seeing how these things are playing out in elections, right?

Dana Taylor:

Well, the big question of course, is gun violence in America fixable? What about this series gave you the most hope?

Suzette Hackney:

I think it's fixable, and you know why it's fixable. It's fixable because of people like Jose. One of the captains from the Los Angeles Police Department who I interviewed said exactly that... He said, "The reason crime is decreasing, particularly in the area where Jose lived, is because of the work of people like Jose." He said, "We are not doing this alone as law enforcement officers. People like Jose are making the difference, and it's not by accident." So to me, that's the answer. We have the answer. We have Jose's, we have Coach Nell's, we have Elijah's. Unfortunately, their lives have been lost, but there are so many other people who can pick up those mantles in various communities around this country. You hear all the time, no one's coming to save us. No one is coming to save us. But if we can find that Jose and that Elijah and that Nell and have them work with the youth and have them serve as mentors and serve as role models, that's how we fix this problem.

Dana Taylor:

Well, Suzette, thank you for sharing your reporting with us and just thank you so much for being on the show.

Suzette Hackney:

Thank you.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our Senior Producer Shannon Rae Green for production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.