The children called her “Ne-Ne.”
It’s a nickname for grandmother, one used by day care children and family members alike for Shirley Jackson, a day care operator killed by a stray bullet.
“Her spirit lives through all of the little kids and through many people,” said Jackson’s grand-niece, Des-tyne Barton, 24.
Jackson was killed one year ago today when she was struck by an errant bullet while in her 1805 Park Lane home, where she ran her day care. Nine children were inside when the bullets flew, authorities said.
Little Rock police say the 60-year-old woman was an innocent victim. Gunmen in a vehicle targeted a house two doors away from Jackson’s home, authorities said. The targeted house was owned by a longtime leader of the Real Hustlers Incorporated, a Bloods-affiliated gang formerly known as the Monroe Street Hustlers, according to federal authorities and public records.
The gunfire on Park Lane also wounded a man police have identified as a member of the Monroe Street Hustlers. The Police Department, in an initial statement, said the man had been inside the house two doors down from Jackson’s when several people started firing.
About 20 minutes before the shooting on Park Lane, gunfire about 2 miles away hit the house of the gang leader’s mother. Another person was wounded in that shooting. Real Hustlers Incorporated is linked to numerous shootings in Arkansas’ capital city, and federal authorities say the gang was involved in the mass shooting at the Power Ultra Lounge nightclub last summer.
Today, Jackson’s death remains unsolved.
“I don’t think the wounds ever really heal, you just learn to live, you know, with that pain. And in time it gets a little easier,” said Jackson’s sister, Erma Sims, calling the slaying senseless.
An arrest, she says, would not bring closure, but instead a sense of satisfaction.
Sims described her sister as a God-loving woman who was quiet in her own way. Her sister loved to work with children and operated the day care for more than 30 years, Sims said. Jackson’s day care, she said, looked after kids who ranged from newborns to small children just about to go into kindergarten.
Many who attended the day care were educationally ahead of other kids when they entered kindergarten, she said.
Jackson’s friend, Vicki Culberson, said she met Jackson when the two were 10 or 11 years old.
“She had a wisdom about her, and I guess that kind of reminded me of my mom,” Culberson said.
“I felt like I could talk to her about everything.”
Jackson had three daughters and at times worked two jobs, said Takiela Spear, one of her daughters. Spear said her father was in and out of her life, and she described Jackson as a single parent.
God always came first, Spear said, and religion played a big role in the family.
Spear also characterized her mom as a giving woman. One time, Spear’s friend was pregnant and needed a mattress for her children. After being told about the situation, Jackson offered up a mattress for the family, she said.
“I don’t know where she got the mattress, but she had a mattress, and it was stored away in her extra room,” Spear said.
After the fatal shooting, Spear said that friend gave her a call and cried. The friend, a stylist, offered to do Jackson’s hair and makeup at the funeral home, she said.
“And I said ‘Are you sure?’ She was like, ‘Your mom helped me when I was at the bottom, so I can repay her doing this,’” Spear said.
What happened after the shooting remains with Barton, who said she arrived at the scene minutes after the gunfire and performed chest compressions on Jackson before Jackson was taken to the hospital.
Barton said two of her sons, now ages 2 and 3, were inside the day care when the gunfire rang out. Barton, who had picked up her eldest son from a nearby school, went to Jackson’s home to pick up her two youngest.
Barton said she had a few breakdowns after the shooting but she’s doing better now.
She said the shooting also affected one of her sons.
“At first, his [reaction] was really bad. I didn’t realize that he could understand. But he did when we would drop him off, he would scream to the top of his lungs, he would scream ‘Ne-Ne, I want to go by Ne-Ne house,’” she said. “I couldn’t explain to a 2-year-old that there was no more day care there for him to go to.”
She reflected on the shooting.
“It could have been one of the kids,” she said, commenting on the incident earlier this week sitting at a coffee shop on North Rodney Parham Road. “It could have been one of my kids.”