Piercing Bystanders' Innocence

He has thought of starting over by apologizing to the six people shot at the pool that day.

"I want to tell them that it wasn't nothing intentional, it wasn't personal, aimed at them," he said. "I knew one of the dudes who was shot, Antonio Robinson. When I heard he was shot, I was like: 'Damn, I know him, we go to school together. I hope he's all right.' And I felt real bad about that."

But Eaton also is worried about retaliation, he said: If the victims are angry with him, they might want to settle the score.

"Maybe I should wait until they are older," he said, "when they're at an age when they can put it aside and say: 'I can't be mad at him. It wasn't intentional.' Or something like that."

He said he has asked the other people involved in the incident, both his brother figures and his enemies, "What were we beefin' about that day?"

No one could remember, including Eaton.

No Lessening the Pain

Malia Williams-Haynes is only 7, but she has a personal plan for avoiding contact with a stray bullet.

"I lie down in the car seat sometimes so they can't hit me," she said.

Malia's cousin, Brooke Crosland, was shot to death at 18, as she sat with friends one evening in July 1998 at the LaSalle Elementary School playground in Northeast. Since then, the family has tried to navigate around the gaping hole that Brooke's absence has caused, but nothing can be made right again.

"After all the funeral rituals and all the things I had to do, I remember thinking that I didn't know how to live anymore, I didn't know what to do," said Brooke's mother, Marilyn Williams-Crosland of Mount Rainier. "I didn't know how to make any decisions and I didn't know how to continue, because I could not imagine not being Brooke's mother anymore."

There is no proof that this type of homicide is more devastating than others, but sometimes it can seem that way. The pure shock of losing Brooke so abruptly -- a bubbly girl with a huge circle of girlfriends. who loved to accompany her grandmother to Kennedy Center events, who left a bag of Doritos on her bedside table to eat later that night -- seems to haunt the family. It was all so pointless -- a maroon car pulled up into the playground, shots were fired, Brooke was in the way.

No one was arrested in the shooting, and sometimes, Williams-Crosland is not sure that matters so much. "It is a never-ending thing and I think it will be never-ending if they do arrest someone," she said. "I don't dwell on it, but there's somebody out there still enjoying their life. They have not been touched by their actions, and I'm touched by them every day. But now, whatever they do, it won't bring her back and it won't lessen my pain."

The family talks often about Brooke, and even relatives too young to remember her feel as if they know her. For Malia, this has caused some fear about her surroundings. On a recent errand with her grandmother, Barbara Williams, the young girl seemed nervous as she walked along Georgia Avenue NW.

"She said, 'The people don't really have friendly faces and they're not smiling,' " said Williams, a retired teacher. "She almost ran into the store. That's so sad for a 7-year-old."