62-year-old killed in Durham remembered as loving father. How to help his family.
Family members of a 62-year-old Durham man shot and killed last week in East Durham are asking for help raising money to bury him.
Maverick Deran Tatum, who went by Pete, was shot Aug. 24 a few blocks from where another man was shot and killed and a woman was shot and injured in December.
His daughter organized an online GoFundMe fundraiser with a goal of $12,000 to help the family bury her father.
Police found Tatum wounded after responding to a reported shooting in the 2400 block of Ashe Street around 5 p..m. Aug. 24.
He was taken to a hospital, where he died.
Police have not identified a suspect.
Tatum, a native of East Durham, was a loving father and kind person, said Kimyatta Tucker, who is asking for help with her father’s funeral expenses after his life insurance policy lapsed due to financial difficulties.
“He did a lot for a lot of people,” said Tucker, 35. “We grew our bond in the last 10 years and grew closer ever since.”
She called his death “senseless” and said he had no conflicts she knew of that could explain his being shot at his girlfriend’s home.
“You know, you see things about gun violence and you never think that it would ever happen this close to home,” she told The News & Observer.
Besides her father’s shooter, Tucker said she blamed his death on an abundance of firearms and “loose” gun laws in North Carolina.
Another double shooting on same street
Police responded to a double shooting on Ashe Street on Christmas morning last year just a few blocks from last week’s shooting.
The shooting in the 2700 block of Ashe Street on Dec. 25, 2022, left a man dead and sent a woman to the hospital.
Anyone with information abou tlast week’s shoting is asked to contact Investigator D. Hall at 919-560-4440 ext. 29319 or CrimeStoppers at (919) 683-1200.
CrimeStoppers pays cash rewards of up to $2,000 for information leading to arrests in felony cases and callers never have to identify themselves.
What Durham’s latest crime report says
On the day of the shooting, Police Chief Patrice Andrews updated the City Council on Durham’s crime data from the first half of 2023.
As of Aug. 19, 128 people had been shot in Durham this year, 25 of them fatally.
In the second quarter of 2023, the report states there were 466 “shooting incidents” in Durham. Police define a shooting incident as “an event reported to police involving the criminal discharge of a firearm, and does not include accidental or self-inflicted shootings.”
However, not all shootings are reported to police.
Colleen Hammond contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 25, 2023 at 12:37 PM.
