Parents Of A Murdered Child Speak: ‘It’s 100% Normal For Teens To Have Guns’ In Some Neighborhoods!

FEATURED PHOTO: KRISTOPHER TEETOR SHOT AND KILLED NOVEMBER 2022

Yahoo.com, By Amber Hunt,=-THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, Posted January 19th 2022

This year in Hamilton County, 15 juveniles have been charged with murder, more than were charged in the last four years combined. Why the increase? Kids Who Kill, The Enquirer’s series on juvenile violence, continues with this conversation.

When 17-year-old Kristopher Teetor was shot dead Nov. 6 in a gas station parking lot, his parents got the call they’d been dreading a year after he’d run away from home. It wasn’t the family’s first brush with gun violence. Kristopher had been shot once before at age 11, and when he was 13, his older brother, 18-year-old Brian “Bubba” Teetor was fatally shot in the face. Parents Brian and Felisha Zimmerman jointly told their story.

Enquirer reporter Amber Hunt: You weren’t Kristopher’s biological parents but you had custody of him. How did he adjust?

The Zimmermans: Kristopher, when we got him, he was 13 years old. He was in the fifth grade. He was three years behind in a school. The last quarter we had him, he was on the honor roll. He got science awards, all kinds of stuff. We used to say he was a flower that needed water. 

We were in a two-bedroom (house) and our daughter was living there at the time. So we’re like, we need a bigger house. We find a three-bedroom, three-bathroom home in a 10-year-old house, a duplex (in Kentucky). We go and look at it, school’s in session, everything’s great. We move in, school’s out. There’s kids everywhere. We didn’t know it was Section 8. I don’t care if you need Section 8, you need help. That’s fine. But our daughter’s boyfriend’s car got shot. There was another shootout. A guy got murdered at the Dollar General right by there. And Kris jokingly says, “Dang, dad, I thought you say you were getting me out of the ‘hood,” like joking around. 

I understand Kristopher had been shot once years ago?

This was right before we got him. We didn’t legally have him yet. On Father’s Day, at midnight, Kristopher was down on Main Street in front of Richie’s Chicken and a guy across the street looked at him and shot from across the street. He was 11 years old. In the left leg. In and out. He came home from the hospital with us, stayed with us for awhile. 

How did he do re-entering school?

He gets into school over there and he’s got no distractions. The kid is on fire. His freshman year in high school, they were the state of Kentucky freshman football champs. I mean, it’s crazy. Other parents were walking past their kids to congratulate Kris. And it’s what he needed. He was an ‘attaboy’ guy. Positive reinforcement went so far. 

We didn’t have any issues. It was crazy. I mean, we had the perfect child. Perfect. I’m talking about a kid who comes home and knocks his homework out immediately. Doesn’t ask for nothing. He was happy to have a normal life.

This was after his older brother Brian was shot and killed?

Kristopher loved Brian (nicknamed Bubba) so much. Bubba was his role model. But Brian also was a victim of his circumstances. He grew up in Price Hill. He would stay with us then he’d get grounded for something and it’d be right back to mom. So it was not just parenting a child; it was fighting an unwinnable battle.

He was one of those kids that was aggressive. But as bad as Bubba was, you know, as far as, like, he was a troubled soul, he would do anything for anyone, you know what I mean? There was two Brians. We used to call him the pit bull when he was with his mom. But it wasn’t him. He couldn’t sleep with the door closed or the lights off. 

The day before he was murdered, we all went to a Goodfellows Pizza downtown. We had a family day, I have pictures from it and it was awesome. It was perfect. He was murdered on a Monday. That Wednesday, two days later, he was supposed to move in with us. He said that he wanted to make a change, he wanted to come to work with me to get his life together. So Bubba gets shot and the police come and nobody will even tell the police what happened. Nobody. So they thought it was an accident, that he was playing with a gun. 

When Brian died, how did Kristopher take it?

It took something from him. Bubba was his everything. It was the single biggest tragedy of his life. That the kid worshiped his big brother. It took a piece from him that was never repaired. 

After Brian died, Kristopher was arrested for having a gun. Talk about that.

Kristopher is across the street from our daughter’s boyfriend’s house and he gets arrested and (the boyfriend) saw it. So he calls us like, ‘Hey guys, little Kris got arrested with a gun.’ We turn on the news and there he is. He was supposed to go to Hillcrest Academy (juvenile detention) because he was caught with a gun. It’s like a mandatory minimum. But the judge actually let him come home. She said, ‘I think it’d be better for him to be in a stable environment than to put him around more criminals. I’m going to give you a chance.’ 

And I knew jail wasn’t good for him. Like, he was a real little guy and I’m like, man, he wants to change, he really wants to change. This was months after Bubba passed so still the trauma from that still weighed so heavily on him. It could’ve made him a bad kid or it could’ve done what it did and change his life. 

When he got the gun charge when he was 13, how did he get the gun?

It’s 100% normal for teenagers to have guns in Price Hill or any inner-city neighborhood. It’s the norm. They actually have a game for it. It’s called ‘caught slipping.’ They roll up on you and they’ll say, ‘Hey!’ and pull a gun on you. And you’ve gotta pull out your gun and show them, like, ‘I’ve got a gun, too.’ It’s like the new larping (live-action role playing). 

What happens when somebody just starts shooting? It’s not a joke. Bullets don’t care. You’re putting the power of taking a life in a child’s hands. And childish decisions will be made. They don’t see the finality in it. They don’t see beyond the action. It’s a video game. 

How did you end up back in Cincinnati?

(Felisha’s) mother, her partner passed away, and she had been wanting to take care of my mother for a long time so we moved back here. The more, the merrier, you know. Kris had the whole upstairs. It’s perfect for a kid that age. And he was so excited to go back to school.  

Then the COVID pops its head up again and they go back to remote learning (in November 2020). And he told us, ‘I’m going to fail.’ He said, ‘Because we go back to remote learning, I’m going to fail.’ We’re like, well, we’ll get through whatever, we’re a family. So it’s the first week of online schooling. He tells us he’s doing fine. He asked us if he can go to his girlfriend’s house. And we were like, ‘Oh, yeah, sure. Let me check your grades. So we go in and check his grades and he really dropped the ball that week. He didn’t do anything. No work at all. I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, this is not Kris. 

Now this girlfriend meant a lot to him, so we tell him we’ll compromise. She can come here. But you have to sit at this table and get your work done for the week. He texted his mother and sister and said, ‘Will you take me to my girlfriend’s?’

He walks down the steps with his bags and he’s already out to his sister’s car, putting stuff in. And we’re screaming at them, ‘If he leaves with you, he’s going to die.’ You would think she would say, ‘No, Kris, what are you doing? You’re in trouble because you didn’t do your schoolwork? Get in there and do your schoolwork.’ She took him from here straight into the projects. 

We called the police that night. They filed charges on her – a felony for interference with custody. She’s been cited three times and they just keep re-citing her. They haven’t even arrested her. 

He made a kid’s decision. You know, he wasn’t getting what he wanted, and he took the path of least resistance.

So from last November to this November, was he at school at all?

Nothing. He never went to school. The system failed us across the board. I can show you the messages: ‘If you do not remove Kristopher from that home, he’s going to die.’ Our goal the whole time is to keep Kristopher alive. It’s such a simple equation. 

What happened the night Kris was killed?

He was at a gas station getting some juice and apparently when he was checking out, he took his cash out, which we told him never to do. The shooter saw his money and followed him outside and he fought back, and then other guys ran up and shot him and went in his pockets.

Every time we’d get a phone call, we were worried. (Felisha) is in the bedroom and she collapses on the floor. She says, ‘Kris is dead.’

What’s terrible is knowing that Kris’ life was taken over possessions. That $300 in the ‘hood is a jackpot.

When it comes to gun violence, if somebody came in and said, OK, what’s your idea for a plan, what would you lay out for them?

We need more community leaders. These kids need resources. They need examples. They don’t see men, real examples of men, you know, men that take care of their children, take care of their households and work to legally provide for their families. Men that don’t go to jail, men that are around to see their children grow up because they’re not doing time.

These kids don’t realize that these guns, they don’t care. When there’s a shooting, the intended victim is rarely hit. That’s the collateral damage that’s around it – little kids getting caught in crossfire, you hear about it every day. And we realize that the guys that killed Kris, they have families too, you know? Kids need to be educated about guns. It’s not like you just shoot in a direction and the bullet hits the person. 

Talk a little bit about the fact that it seems like people with guns or been shot or even killed are celebrated.

It’s street cred. You kill somebody, you get a body? And now these kids are so allured with the fast life, like the girl who was with our son, this girl now has her story. You know, she was there in a shootout. You know, her homie died, you know. She said she was right there and she held him and he looked up and said, ‘Tell my fam, I’m sorry.’ That didn’t happen. I know Kris. Kris was scared and he was crying and that’s what breaks my heart. He was fighting for his life when he died. 

Let’s do the odds. Between the two of us, we have six children. What are the odds that out of three boys, two of them have been murdered from gun violence? What are the odds on it? 

Where are the community leaders? Nobody’s reached out to us and said, ‘Hey, look, this is terrible. You guys lost two sons to gun violence.’ Seventeen and 18 years old. And I begged them. I can show you the emails. 

On Facebook, every shooting of a young boy, it’s like, OK, it’s just another shooting. So what? Onto the next one? What is going on? These young men and boys are dropping like flies and it’s not a big deal. These kids, they have dresser drawers full of T-shirts – rest-in-peace T-shirts – and nobody finds that out of the ordinary. In the ‘hood, they call it ‘making it to the T-shirt.’

These are children, these are sons and brothers, and you can’t make any sense of it. You can’t rationalize how our youth is just disappearing. 

The above conversation has been edited for clarity. Enquirer reporter Amber Hunt recorded and transcribed the interview before editing. In some cases, questions and answers have been shortened and moved to make the conversations easier to follow and to remove unnecessary asides and repetitions.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kids Who Kill: Parents of Kristopher Teetor speak about teens, guns