He was starting quarterback at his KC school as a freshman. A year later he was dead

It was a quiet Sunday. DeVohn Dudley-Reese lounged on his mom’s couch, squishing her decorative pillows despite her insistence he keep them fluffed. He dozed off, his thumb in his mouth, something his dad teased him about. The 16-year-old was growing into a man, but he was still very much a child.

DeVohn woke up and ate cereal and a breakfast sandwich with his little brothers, then he headed out the door of his mom’s south Kansas City home in the early afternoon for the last time. Before he left, DeShawn Reese, 34, told all four of her sons that she loves them. She never wants them to forget.

Within about an hour, DeVohn was dead. The sophomore at William Chrisman High School in Independence was shot alongside 18-year-old Jazion Sanders at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 27 near East 38th Street and Garfield Avenue in Kansas City. A third person was also injured in the shooting. No further information has been released by police.

A football star

A photo of DeVohn as an infant, sitting just behind a basketball that’s half his size, is printed across a blanket in his mom’s home. From a young age, he couldn’t get enough of most sports.

He started playing football around the age of six, his parents said. DeVohn didn’t miss a single season after. He played for the KC Rebels youth team until he earned the spot of starting quarterback as a freshman for Southeast High School’s varsity team. Colleges started reaching out to him shortly after.

Yes, he practiced a lot, said DeVohn’s father, Vershawn Dudley, 34. But his son was also a natural, earning the name “Monster” on his youth team, a nod to his hefty frame.

“Dudley’s going to throw it - there’s the arm,” a sports announcer shouts in a taping of a 2020 game.

His team scores a touchdown.

“We always say he had one of those Patrick Mahomes arms,” his mother said.

Mike Coulter, who was principal at Carver Dual Language School in Kansas City when DeVohn attended, said his former student was “ a very good-hearted individual and a person who continuously tried to improve himself.”

While he struggled early on with reading, Coulter said DeVohn did well in math, which was taught in Spanish.

But where he excelled most was with a football in hand.

Coulter said it was clear DeVohn was a gifted athlete, from pick-up games on the school playground at recess to the football field.

When DeVohn earned a starting spot on the varsity team as a freshman, Coulter came to see one of his games, snapping photos of his former student as he took the field.

“He played outstandingly, and I saw his potential. He was a much better quarterback at that age than I was -- and I went on to play the position in college myself … I was looking forward to great things for De’Vohn.”

‘First best friend’

Reese was 17 when DeVohn was born. Dudley was 18.

“My very first best friend,” she calls her eldest son, the one who she still sees so much of herself in.

He was a leader from a young age. Vibrant, humble and constantly energized.

Unlike his younger brothers, who are more shy, DeVohn was the life of the party. When he wasn’t tossing a football with his cousins, he was likely making TikToks with his brothers, his parents said. He loved shrimp-fried rice and orange chicken, and he could hold a conversation with men three times his age, a skill his parents said showed his maturity.

When Reese faced her own struggles through his upbringing, she’d ask her sons if they resented her in any way.

“Momma, you’re doing the best that you can,” DeVohn always told her.

He faced challenges of his own.

At the start of his youth football career, he was hit by a car. He flew into the air and needed a number of surgeries. But he pushed through his recovery, still refusing to sit out a football season, his parents said.

He recently got a job at Pizza Hut, and he helped his dad with his towing business after school and on weekends, always eager to help change a tire or jump a car.

DeVohn’s sights were set on playing football in college, preferably at an HBCU. He hoped to follow in the footsteps of one of his cousins, who plays for Minnesota. He’d have been the first person in his immediate family to go to college. His parents couldn’t wait.

“If you’re going to go to school, make sure don’t be regular. Be the doctor. Be the psychologist. Ascribe for something higher,” Dudley said.

“I told him to go as far as you can … Just see everything, see more stuff than this,” Dudley added, gesturing to the south Kansas City house he sat in.

The shooting

Last year, Dudley bought a home in Independence. The school district was better, the football team was bigger. He and Reese hoped to get their sons away from Kansas City’s historically underserved and under-resourced urban core.

“We just wanted our sons to have the best possible life ever. To be able to take care of themselves,” Reese said.

Then he got the call from police.

While KCPD hasn’t released more information in the shooting that killed DeVohn and Sanders, a request for a search warrant filed in Jackson County Court reveals a bit more about what happened that day.

The surviving victim was 17 at the time of the shooting.

The 17-year-old told police he was in the neighborhood to sell tires to someone. Surveillance footage of the shooting, which was obtained by police, shows the three teenagers and one other person meet at the intersection of 38th and Garfield. While the four are talking, Sanders pulled out a gun “and a struggle ensues,” the warrant reads.

DeVohn grabbed at the 17-year-old, who then pulled out a gun and shot DeVohn, who collapsed, according to court records. Then the unknown fourth person took out a gun and shot Sanders.

No juveniles had been charged in the shooting as of Tuesday afternoon, Valerie Hartman, a spokeswoman for Jackson County Circuit Court, confirmed.

Reese and Dudley said as of Tuesday morning, they hadn’t heard anything from police since the day their son was killed. They still don’t know what happened that day.

“I’m just afraid that my son’s murder is going to go unnoticed or unsolved,” Reese said. “They killed a baby.”

Dudley wants stricter gun purchasing laws. He wants weapons to stay out of the hands of children.

Reese puts some of the responsibility on parents.

“They pride their kids in toting guns and shooting guns, and being involved in the street life and drugs and things like that,” she said.

Coulter, the principal, wants more people in power focusing on youth.

As of Wednesday, 169 people have been killed in Kansas City in 2022, most as the result of gunshot wounds; 18 were teenagers.

“I believe re-emphasizing a focus on children would benefit our community and country,” he said. “ … Our culture needs to place a high value on the lives of children.”

A legacy

People ask how Dudley is feeling. It’s been two weeks, and he still doesn’t know how to answer.

It’s agony to walk past his son’s room, but he can’t bear to throw any of his things away. Instead, he’s slowly setting up a memorial for him in the room.

Mostly he feels empty.

Reese called the school district to set her surviving sons up with therapy. She knows what it’s like to lose a sibling. Her younger brother, DeVohn’s uncle, recently died by suicide.

She knows nothing will ease their pain. But she also knows they need someone to talk to.

Reese wants to make sure her son is remembered for his life. She had his obituaries printed up with a large photo of DeVohn in his football uniform on the front, the word “legacy” in bold letters above him.

“I don’t want everybody to just remember him because he was a 16-year-old kid who was murdered,” she said. “I don’t want this to be the last thing that they remember about my son.”

He was a football star. A brother. A son. A child.

“Rest easy son, rest eas-y.” Dudley whispers under his breath.

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