WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — Corey Green has been preaching against violence in West Memphis for a year, and he says he’s not giving up after two shootings killed three people this weekend.
One of the shootings happened at Green’s business, a car repair shop on East Broadway. For him, what happened is like a punch in the gut.
“I mean it’s real depressing,” Green said. “It’s painful that it happened on my watch.”
His car repair shop doubles as a nightclub. The building has a sign that reads, “No guns, No violence.”
But those guidelines weren’t followed this weekend, when a party turned deadly. Two men were shot and killed early Saturday morning.
One of them, Nathaniel Henderson, was Green’s cousin.
“He was a good guy,” Green said. “I never see him do anything wrong.”
West Memphis police say Reginald Smith and Raheem Stackhouse fired the shots.
Green says he knows Stackhouse and has talked to him about turning his life around several times.
Green’s anti-violence group, Pledge to My Community, has been appealing to men like these for years.
“We’ve been walking the streets, protesting, going from neighborhood to neighborhood, fighting, talking to the same guys,” he said.
Green primarily hires felons at his auto shop, 2nd Chance Automotive.
“We here to try to rehabilitate the minds of brothers,” he said. “I don’t have a clean, squeeky past. I’m not here to sugarcoat nothing. I come from the streets.”
Green pulled up to the shop right after the shooting happened. He says he doesn’t know what led up to it, and police haven’t released those details.
And while he feels defeated right now, Green says he’ll never stop fighting against violence.
“Mentally, I got to fix myself to keep going but I’m not going to give up.”
Police are still searching for the two suspects in this shooting.
There was a second shooting in West Memphis Saturday morning. A woman was shot and killed in her home on Oxford, but police haven’t released any other details.
