Woman targeted by killers, police say
Mother of three is shot on porch in Mattapan
As Deanna Watkins sat on her porch with her three children and some friends and family, enjoying the summer-like weather Thursday evening, two men riding bikes pedaled up Arbutus Street. The children were enjoying frozen treats, given to them by a neighbor, when shots rang out.
"It was pow, pow, pow," recalled the neighbor, who requested she be identified by only her first name, Pam.
She ran out, fearing that the children had been hit.
"I heard a loud screaming noise and I just thought about those kids," she said. Then she saw Watkins, 29, lying on the ground, with a gunshot wound to her head. "She wasn't breathing."
Police Commissioner Edward Davis said yesterday afternoon that the shooting was not random, but he would not discuss a motive.
"We believe she was most likely targeted," he said. "All of the evidence we have at this time indicates she was the intended victim."
Davis said authorities are familiar with the address and have investigated complaints of drug activity there. Police are working with promising evidence as well as strong witness accounts, he said. "We have very good suspect descriptions at this time."
Watkins's grandmother, Irene Watkins, was on vacation in North Carolina when she got a call early Friday morning. She took the first available flight back home.
"I can't put together why this happened," she said in a telephone interview yesterday evening. "Deanna was not one to argue or fight, and she was never in the streets. These young people, it doesn't bother them to take a life, and now there are three children without their mother." She said that Watkins's children are 9, 6, and 2.
Davis called an emergency meeting yesterday morning in response to the shooting, to come up with a deployment plan to prevent retaliation over the Memorial Day weekend. Yesterday, the police presence was highly visible - nine officers on mountain bikes rode together through the neighborhood as police on motorcycles and in marked and unmarked cruisers toured the streets.
"We will be paying close attention to every impact player, visiting homes of everyone on parole or probation in this area, and will be talking to them about the wisdom of picking up a firearm," Davis said, moments before going on a brief walk through a housing complex several blocks from the scene of the shooting. Davis stopped and talked to several residents, including a woman who identified herself as the victim's godmother.
The woman told Davis that her son was a homicide victim, shot two years ago, and that another son fears walking out the door. "He is petrified, scared people are looking for him. These shootings have got to stop," she told Davis.
Watkins's death sent a wave of fear and anger throughout the neighborhood. Throughout the day yesterday, men and women huddled around a makeshift memorial of candles and balloons in front of Watkins's home, demanding that reporters and camera crews stay away. The Rev. William Dickerson, the pastor of the nearby Greater Love Tabernacle, visited the family in the afternoon.
"All homicides are sad, but when you're talking about a female, when a mother goes down, the whole city should be outraged," Dickerson said. "As men, we're supposed to protect our women and children."
Watkins was shot at about 7:40 p.m., not long after she had brought refreshments to the choir at her church, the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, around the corner on Blue Hill Avenue.
Church members came outside when they heard the shots.
"We were having a good time praising the Lord, and this is what we saw," said Thelma Claiborne, head of the church's choir. She said Watkins had attended the church since she was a toddler.
Police said that at least one of the men on the bikes fired at Watkins. Police had gathered a couple of blocks up Blue Hill Avenue, near Floyd Street, looking for suspects when dozens of people started chasing two men down the street. Those men were questioned and released. It is unclear whether the men were the same two that witnesses saw riding up the street prior to the shooting, according to police, but no arrests had been made in the case as of yesterday evening.
The neighbor, Pam, said that after she rushed to the porch following the shooting, a relative of the victim told her to go inside and take care of Watkins's children.
"The oldest son . . . was saying, 'Please don't let my mom die. I don't want to go to a foster home," she said. 