INTRODUCING A NEW PODCAST: RICOCHET
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Nikolette Rivera was clinging to her mother, Joan Ortiz, more than usual on Oct. 20, 2019. She wanted to be held all morning.
She clutched her mother tight and placed her head on her mother’s chest, right over her heart. Ortiz answered the door of her Kensington home with the 2-year-old in her arms. The next instant, she was gone.
A bullet from an assault rifle struck Nikolette in the head and instantly killed her — an innocent life taken in a city awash with guns.
Gun violence is a national crisis, but it has hit Philadelphia, America’s poorest big city, especially hard. In Philadelphia, more than 10,000 people have been shot in the last five years — 2,100 dead. It’s been the most violent time in the city’s history.
Ortiz loved Nikolette, her only daughter, with all her heart. The man who pulled the trigger, Tayvon Thomas, wasn’t as fortunate. Thomas was neglected and abused as a child. When he was 8 months old, his uncle put his head in boiling water in the bathtub. He suffered severe injuries and disfigurement. His mother nicknamed him “Freak.”
“We’re all responsible for our own actions and life regardless of how the cards are dealt. But Tayvon Thomas had a unique situation,” said Philadelphia defense attorney Earl Kauffman, who represented Thomas through charges.
As he grew up, Thomas’ mother would often beat him and neglect both him and his siblings. Thomas and his siblings were eventually taken from their home and put in the foster care system. Through much of his young adult life, Thomas bounced in and out of mental health facilities and prison. Despite it all, Kauffman said he was personable and positive.
He had a juvenile record, though, and landed in prison because of probation violations. He felt betrayed by the people he believed were supposed to have his back.
On Oct. 20, 2019, Thomas and a man named Freddie Perez felt that the group they sold drugs with didn’t get them out of jail fast enough. They intended to target one of the men in that group — Nikolette’s father — but misidentified the carpet cleaner at Ortiz’s front door as their target.
Kauffman said Thomas sobbed when he learned that he killed a 2-year-old.
In August 2021, Thomas appeared in court to take responsibility and accept his sentence. Ortiz was there, too, and did something no one expected: She forgave him.
“I just felt in my heart I needed to tell him so he can go do his time in peace,” she said. “I don’t hate him. Even with a face that a mother couldn’t love — because that’s what I’ve heard people say before — I know my daughter would have loved him because she was loved. She was made out of love.”
Two weeks after that hearing, wracked by guilt, 27-year-old Thomas died by suicide.
“The fault goes back 27 years,” said Kauffman, “and all the things that happened in between. That was just his last stop.”
“They’re not a part of my daughter’s legacy,” Ortiz added. “Just letting them go and letting their existence go and not giving them that power anymore … just letting him go completely, it’s taken a ton of bricks off of the house that I’m carrying on my back.”
Listen to Episode 1: Trigger
Like Thomas, Ortiz and Nikolette, every bullet fired has a ripple effect. They’re just one of many plagued by Philadelphia’s ongoing gun violence crisis. In this series from Gone Cold, we’ll examine the issues through stories from those who are affected most: victims, defendants, law enforcement, medical workers, judges and families.
What makes someone pull the trigger? What is the lasting impact? And what, if anything, can make it stop? Listen to Nikolette’s story and several others in the inaugural episode of Ricochet.
Listen to all episode of Ricochet in the playlist above, where you'll hear from those who have been shot, those who lost loved ones — and even those who pulled the trigger.
Article written by Rachel Kurland. Podcast written and hosted by Kristen Johanson and produced by Sabrina Boyd-Surka, with production assistant Winston Harris.