On the day Tyrone Koger was born in 1989, his father's casket was lowered into the ground at the Inglewood Park Cemetery. He had been shot to death in a car in South L.A.
Dominique Austin was born five days after Tyrone. They met at Gardena High School, and they both went on to Crimson Technical College, where they learned to fuel planes. The two were like brothers — they even got fired from a job at the airport together.
Isaiah Bell went to the same church as Dominique when they were kids. They lost touch in high school, but reconnected at a funeral for Dominique's 17-year-old cousin. He had been shot to death outside his girlfriend's apartment.
The three young men from South L.A. were always around each other. Sometimes they'd volunteer for an anti-violence organization that Isaiah's father founded. They'd sit at long tables and piece together black and silver ribbons, a staple of the group's message: "Behind every black cloud of crime, there is a silver lining of hope."
In L.A. County in 2013, only about one person in 17,000 became a victim of homicide. That ratio continues to decline today. But in some communities, homicide feels common.