Howard Grant Jr. and Justin Berry were marked men.
The cousins had survived a string of shootings in the past four months. Both were present when a friend was shot and killed in June, and two months later they were targeted while sitting in front of their family home in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Each time, and as recently as last week, Grant and Berry, who police believed were possible witnesses in the killing, had been hauled to police headquarters, where detectives spent hours urging them to go into a protection program. But they resisted. That wasn't for them. Was that how they were going to live their lives? Running?
After each shooting, police placed a squad car outside the family home for a few days, a private security detail not usually afforded to the hundreds of shooting victims across the city each year. But there was only so much police could do to stop someone with a gun, an agenda and a city that embraces - and occasionally enforces - a code of silence.
On Sunday, the odds caught up with them, claiming the life of Grant, 18, the father of a 1-year-old child, and Berry, 19, a basketball standout at Frederick Douglass High School who was just a few months into his freshman year at Morgan State University.
On Sunday, Grant and Berry were walking not far from their home about 10:30 p.m. when they were shot and killed.
"These were good kids," Howard Grant Sr. said. "Angels, neither one of them. But I don't know any kids who are. You supposed to be allowed to grow old, unless God wills you not to be. To have two young men, 18 and 19 years old, executed, butchered, or whatever they were, just taken, it is totally unfair."
Witness intimidation has been among the most vexing problems for Baltimore officials as they combat the city's culture of crime and violence. The issue came into the national spotlight in 2004 when an underground DVD called Stop Snitching warned witnesses against cooperating with authorities. Lawmakers responded by passing tougher penalties for witness intimidation, but the problem persists.
Sitting on a couch in the family home, Grant Sr. defended his son's decision to refuse protection, saying he had advised the teen against it.
"You know, it's almost like you still have to go on with life," Grant Sr. said. "It's one of those things that you can't allow certain forces and other people to dictate things, and I think my son was of the same mind-set."
