About Me
LOVEYOU ALWAYS Davelle Tate, 16, had just finished showing off his exhibit about Taoism and respect at his East Oakland high school. But when he got home Monday night, someone with a gun was waiting for him outside his apartment. Shots were fired, and a mortally wounded Davelle staggered through the complex, leaving spatters of blood from his neck on the ground. He banged on the door of his apartment on the 1100 block of East 18th Street near Lake Merritt. "Mom, I've been shot," he said to a horrified Kathryn Johnson, who called for an ambulance for her only child. Among his last words: "Mom, I love you." Davelle, whose nickname was "Velle," died at 1:21 a.m. Tuesday at Highland Hospital in Oakland, the city's 36th homicide victim this year. Homicide Sgt. Brian Medeiros said investigators were trying to determine who had killed Davelle, who from all accounts did well in school and had no criminal history. "You feel bad for a family that's doing all the right things, " he said. "It looks like someone was waiting for him," Medeiros said. "He was, without a doubt, the intended target. Why is still being determined." Family members suspect that someone who felt disrespected during a dispute apparently followed Davelle as he took a bus home and shot him dead. Marco Owens, 40, who lives with the boy's mother, kept busy Tuesday morning with a broom and a bucket, scrubbing away blood stains on the ground and on the rear bumper of a neighbor's blue Chevy Malibu. "Davelle was an all-around good guy," Owens said as he wiped away tears. "Getting a gun don't solve nothing. A gun doesn't make you a man." Johnson, 38, agreed, saying, "I just don't understand what was so bad that could make someone run up and kill him. There's no fighting anymore -- someone has to take a life to make a point." The door to Davelle's bedroom has signs that read "No trespassing -- keep out" and "Enter at your own risk." Inside is his pet turtle Snappy and his PlayStation 2. His walls and ceiling are covered with posters of rap artists and pictures of his girlfriend. "This is a nightmare," Owens said while surveying the room. "It's like you hope you wake up and it's just a dream." Davelle attended East Oakland Community High School on 64th Avenue, where classmates wrote messages of remembrance Tuesday at a makeshift memorial. His humanities teacher, Trevor Gardner, gave him a positive rating in April for his critical thinking skills. "The thing that stands out about Davelle is he was such a kid at heart -- he loved to play around and had a youthful energy," Gardner said. "But at the same time, given where he grew up, he had to be a man sometimes." The slaying comes as the neighborhood east of Lake Merritt is coping with a surge in gang activity, said local activist Hannah James. "We've had a lot of problems in our beat, but the police are doing the best they possibly can with no resources," James said. "It's always regrettable when we see a young life go down." JUST SOME MORE MEMORIES
