GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Grand Rapids mother is sharing her heartbreak after losing her son to gun violence earlier this week.
Kim Perry's son, Marcell Ross, 30, was shot and killed early Monday morning in the 1100 block of Dallas Avenue SE.
The Grand Rapids Police Department has not made any arrests.
Perry hopes by sharing her grief that other mothers won't have to go what she's going through.
"He was a mama's baby. Yes, he was," said Perry of her son, whom she called her protector.
Ross was also someone his older sister could rely on.
"I'm going to miss my brother. He looked up to me," said Tyniesha Triplett, Marcell's sister.
Ross was a father figure to his girlfriend's four children, adopting one as his own.
His loss is more than his family can bear.
"I feel all the mothers' pain that lost their children to gun violence," said Perry. "I was never supposed to be in these shoes right now."
"There were just two of us. I'm so mad because I couldn't help," said Triplett.
Marcell's family says he died early Monday morning after trying to break up a fight between two women. He ended up being shot; his male shooters still on the run.
This isn't his mother and uncles' first brush with gun violence. Their brother was killed in 1985, and their mother, ten years later.
"We talk about police is killing us and other people, but we're killing ourselves and we don't respect ourselves," said Clarence Henderson, Marcell's uncle. "Who's going to respect us when we shooting guns when we disagree?"
Through the pain, the family is standing by each other and standing up against gun violence.
"As an African American male, I can tell you, you know what, we need to speak out," said Reggie Howard, Marcell's uncle. "It's time to stop being silent and letting our family members and more mothers bury their kids."
"As a community, we need to go back and take care of our kids," said Henderson.
"All I really want to know is the truth. I want to know what happened to my baby," said Perry.
No suspect information is available according to police. Anyone with information is asked to contact detectives at 616-456-3380 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345 or www.silentobserver.org.
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