Subscribe
The Daily Grind Video
CLOSE

They have a name…. so give them a voice!

This past weekend, another family suffered the loss of a loved one to a gunshot.

Anthony Michael Barre, also known as “Messy Mya”, a YouTube Comedian who was making a name for himself, was celebrating at his girlfriend’s baby shower. While leaving the baby shower, he was killed by a single bullet.

Headlines of shootings, violence, and death are so common, that hearing news like that makes no difference to most hearing it. What made Messy Mya’s death so controversial? A photograph.

People at the event took pictures of Messy Mya as he lay in a pool of his blood. Within minutes, these pictures were all over Twitter and soon, all over the internet. Global Grind posted the picture up on their website, stirring up commotion between celebrities such as Kimora Lee Simmons and Russell Simmons. Many people believe that having pictures of the deceased in that state is hurtful and disrespectful. I beg to differ.

[pagebreak]

I am a victim. I am a widow.

While leaving the hospital, my husband and I got lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood. My husband stopped at a gas station to buy a box of cigarettes. A box of cigarettes he never got to smoke. As we drove away from the gas station, a vehicle pulled up alongside us. There were five (5) passengers in this vehicle. Five complete strangers. All of them were under 19 years old. The driver of the vehicle was only 16. Two of the passengers in the vehicle pulled out guns and started shooting into our car. My husband, who was driving, was struck immediately. I leaned over him and crashed the car a block down. They then proceeded to shoot at our vehicle once more.

Those were the split seconds that changed my life forever.

[pagebreak]

Now, I can summarize the story in a simple, neat paragraph like I did above. I can go into details and tell you how I held my husband as he sat in that car dying. I can tell you how I had my husband’s blood all over my body. I can close my eyes and give you every single detail of what I lived that night. The sound of the gunshots, the 911 call, the police, the chaos, the loss. Yet, none of what I can say will remotely begin to describe what I actually feel. No picture can show what I actually saw.

So why would I want to see a picture that will make me relive that entire night? One simple reason…. JUSTICE.

My husband had a name. His name was Javier Raul Ulloa.

My husband had a voice. A voice that was taken from him. A voice I will never hear again. Now, I am his voice. Global Grind, and their “He Has a Name” program, is our voice. TV shows, like “America’s Most Wanted” and “Persiguiendo Injusticias” are our voices.

[pagebreak]

Some of the people responsible for that night were arrested and are currently awaiting trial. One of the shooters, managed to escape. If I had to stare at pictures of the crime scene and of my husband’s body every day, yet I knew that it would cause so much commotion that maybe someone would come forward, I would send out e-mails with them myself. I’d give anything for one full night of sleep. I’d give anything to stop worrying about the fact that a murderer is out on the loose. Images, like those of Messy Mya, are hard to see. They are painful to the family and the friends. It is sad to see that people will take a pictu