Street brawl: "It didn't have to go down this way"(Part 2)
A white towel soaks up the blood oozing from Derrick Tye's skull.
"(Doctors) put 14 stitches on the outside of my head and who knows how many on the inside," he says.
The 23-year-old then turns to display the gash on his back.
"If the knife had went in another inch there, it'd have gotten my lung, and I'd be dead," Tye says.
He presses the towel against the exposed head flesh, and the red spot widens as he sighs.
"This shouldn't have happened, man," he says. "It didn't have to go down this way."
'It just kept getting worse'
On Monday, Tye and two other men were stabbed in a series of street brawls in downtown Dubuque.
Doctors treated and released Tye, as well as 28-year-old Romaine Wheeler, of Dubuque, who suffered from superficial knife wounds, according to the Dubuque Police Department.
Authorities also discovered Willie L. Jones, 50, unconscious from blunt-force injuries and transported him to The Finley Hospital where he was treated and released.
Tye said these scenarios would have been devastating enough but that "it just kept getting worse."
Less than a block from where Tye's head and back were slashed, his 24-year-old cousin, Jermaris West, also was stabbed.
Around 11:23 a.m., the Dubuque resident died in the arms of a stranger while Tye battled to survive.
'If we'd known they'd had knives'
The entire incident ignited late Sunday night when Tye and 18-year-old Jerel L. Wright argued about Latisa Cockrel, the mother of Tye's child.
According to court documents, Wright spent Sunday night at 2101 Kniest St. with LaToya Burns and Cockrel. Wright woke up and found Tye looking for Cockrel.
Tye said a fight broke out after he asked if Wright was "talking" to Cockrel. His cousin, West intervened and asked Wright to leave.
"I thought that was that, but it wasn't," Tye said.
Wright told police he spent the hour after the confrontation at the Audubon School playground. He called his family in Chicago to explain what happened, lingered on his front porch and went to bed around 4 a.m. The next morning he did laundry and "cruised" Dubuque with friends he refused to identify.
Tye said he spent his morning walking with West to Washington Street for a friend's barbecue.
While cruising, Wright saw the cousins and "enticed" Tye to fight. Witnesses called police, and Wright chased Tye down the block. Fifteen minutes later, the fight turned deadly.
Tye said he and West were in a parked car with West's fiancee, Lashaun Runnels, when they were attacked by a group of seven guys that included Jerel Wright, and his 20-year-old brother, Joseph Wright.
"We thought it was going to be just a plain fight," Tye said. "If we had known they had knives, we never would have gotten out of the car."
Runnels tried to save her fiance.
"I was right there, trying to get them off of my baby, but there was too many people," she said.
The group then attacked Tye, who defended himself with a glass bottle, while Runnels looked for West.
"It was like he vanished," she said. "That's what's eating me up. I wasn't there to hold him in my arms while he was fighting for his life, to tell him to stay awake."
'So much promise'
Lorease Williams spent Tuesday afternoon filling boxes.
"I have to take my son's belongings home with me," she said.
Clothes, photographs, videos -- each item held meaning for the mother in mourning.
"My son had dreams," she said.
Many of them centered around his new life in Dubuque, and with each belonging packed away, another dream seemed to die.
Williams said her son Jermeris moved from Chicago in 2002 to live with his aunt and repair his reputation, although he slipped.
In January, Dubuque police found 34 grams of crack cocaine in West's apartment. They also found Ecstacy, marijuana and a loaded handgun. He received a 10-year suspended prison sentence and probation.
The incident fueled his desire to change, said his job counselor, Julie Ehlinger.
"I just had so much hope for him because he had so much promise," she said. "His actions told me he was trying to get his life back on track, and he was doing phenomenal."
'He wanted to better himself'
Just as West sought a new start in Dubuque, so did Jerel and Joseph Wright.
"Jerel came to your town for a better life, and there for awhile, he had it," said his mother, Sharon Wright, who lives in Chicago. "He came out there a year and a half ago and got a job at HyVee. He went back to school and got his GED. Then he wanted his certified nursing assistant certificate, so he studied hard, and last week, he texted me, saying, 'Mama, I passed.'"
Although Joseph was the older brother, he followed Jerel's footsteps and sought work in Dubuque.
"He wanted to better himself like his brother had," Sharon said.
On Tuesday, Sharon mourned for her sons just as Williams mourned for hers.
"We mothers are hurting," she said.
Police arrested Jerel for attempted murder and charged Joseph with assault while displaying a dangerous weapon. Police say more charges will follow.
"My Jerel called me from the jail, and he was crying and he was screaming," Sharon said. "He screamed, 'Mom, I did everything right. I went to school. I got a job. I did everything I was supposed to do, and the (bad life) keeps chasing me down.'"
While she says her sons are "good men," she says they could have been involved in the incident.
According to police, the brothers were part of the group that scattered after the fight. They ran to the 1900 block of Washington Street, and it was there Joseph approached Danielle M. Whitehead, 20, on a bicycle. He pulled out a silver butcher knife from his waist line and said, "run up to me (expletive) and I'll poke you," according to court documents.
Jerel fled the scene of the fight, but police found him a short time later near 19th and Jackson streets with blood saturating his jeans. He asked investigators if Tye was dead.
When they said they didn't know, he replied, "I tried to kill that mother (expletive)," records state.
At least three witnesses identified the Wrights as members of the fight, including one who said she knew Jerel had a knife, though she didn't see it.
According to court documents, Tye pointed out Jerel in a photo lineup, telling police, "I am positive he stabbed me, I cannot forget him."
'Wasn't supposed to happen'
Tye mumbles when he tells his family of the fight.
"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," he said. "I just don't get why it happened like this."
His skull still throbs and the wound on his back aches. Bruises appear on other parts of his body as evidence of his narrow escape from death.
But when asked how he feels, he responds with one word.
"Blessed."
(Written in collaboration with Courtney Blanchard)
