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PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Jermaine Robinson was timid growing up, according to his mother, Andrea Robinson. He was bullied and beaten up by other kids. When he was chased home from school one day, Andrea had had enough.
“You can’t be no punk,” she told herself, and then Jermaine. “He got to fight because I don’t never want him to get chased home like that again.
“Was that the biggest mistake of my life? I kind of believe it was.”
Andrea did everything she could to parent her children well, but she said encouraging Jermaine to defend himself backfired greatly. At 11, he was arrested for assaulting a teacher. That was the start of his criminal record, and it followed him into adulthood.
“He would come visit. He’d go to prison, come home. I’ll get him for the first two weeks then he’ll disappear — don’t see him no more,” she remembered.
Jermaine’s methods of self-defense soon escalated from fists to firearms. He was nicknamed “Shooter.” Andrea warned her son of what would likely happen if he continued on this path — curt foresight only a mother could give.
She forbade him from bringing guns into her house. When he moved out at 15, she called relentlessly, asking where he was and what he was doing. She reported him to the police. She begged judges to lock him up. Even when he was arrested or on probation, she always fought to make sure he followed the law.
“I'd rather see you and visit you behind bars than go to your gravesite and visit you in the ground,” she said.
When Jermaine was 24, he was arrested on drug charges — again — and sentenced to more time behind bars. However, he was immediately paroled for time served.
It was an endless cycle of getting locked up, released, and then turning back to the streets. Jermaine did not heed his mother’s pleas, nor did the criminal justice system, she said.
“I watched my son lie and I knew he was guilty,” she said. “I say, ‘You guilty, you better admit that you’re guilty,’ so that way you can pay these consequences and get it out of your system and move on. And then he pleads guilty and they slap him on the wrist and give him two, three years probation. And he goes back to the same block that you caught him on.”
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Andrea checks the Citizen app regularly, which alerts users of public safety issues in real time. For years, every time she got a notification — a shoutout on this block, a man on pursuit in this neighborhood — she’d ask, “Jermaine, is that you?”
On April 19, 2021, it was him.
Investigators said Jermaine was shot seven times throughout the body and head in the Harrowgate neighborhood of Kensington. He was 29.
Andrea’s daughter called her and said they identified Jermaine at the hospital based on his tattoo: “No. 1 mom Andrea,” it said.
She wasn’t surprised, though. It was only a matter of time.
“I told my baby girl, ‘Your brother’s gone.’ And she said ‘no!’ — I said stop crying. We knew this was gonna happen. … You live by the sword, you die by it.”
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Jermaine isn’t unique. He’s one of about 370 Black men who were killed in Philadelphia in 2021.
“There are no winners here,” said Diana Anhalt, a judge in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. “As moms, sometimes we know when our kids are heading down the wrong path. It’s like a freight train, and you can put your arms out to try to stop it like you’re Superman or Superwoman. Ultimately, it’s — I’m not Superwoman, I’m not Superman, and I’m not gonna be able to stop that train. And moms can see this.”
Gun violence continues to plague cities across the country. In Philadelphia, people are shot every day. What drives someone to pick up a gun and shoot? Does it really protect you? And, how much influence does a family have?
On the second episode of the KYW Newsradio original podcast Ricochet, hear more about the Robinsons’ story, and others, as we try to understand what drives a person to pick up a gun and shoot, and how trauma is often the trigger.
LISTEN TO EPISODE 2: SHOOTER
In upcoming Ricochet episodes, hear from those who have been shot, those who lost loved ones — and even those who pulled the trigger. Follow Gone Cold: Philadelphia Unsolved Murders. Episodes will be released every Wednesday on the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Article written by Rachel Kurland. Podcast written and hosted by Kristen Johanson and produced by Sabrina Boyd-Surka, with production assistant Winston Harris.