'Junior' leaves behind legacy of anti-violence

QUINCY - Ramiro Munoz Jr. had high hopes for his community.

The 40-year-old Quincy resident, known as Junior to friends and family, wanted to help local students avoid the pitfalls of gang membership. He was trying to get a Boys and Girls Club started and was becoming more involved with programs aiming to curb gang violence.

"He had so many plans for what he wanted to do," said Raquel Munoz DeLaGarza, Junior's wife of eleven years.

But her husband's plans were cut short in September when he lost his life. Witnesses say he was shot dead in the street after confronting a group of young men with gang ties who were firing guns in the air near North Park in Quincy.

Junior left behind seven children, five under the age of 12, who struggled to understand why their dad was gunned down in front of them.

"It's really hard to explain," said Munoz DeLaGarza. "I just tell them he's an angel now and he's always with us."

Moses Lake resident Steven Juarez said he grew up with Junior and kept in touch with him over the years through a softball league.

"He was a strong person," Juarez said. "He would get a bad rap sometimes because you see this 6-foot-2-(inch), 240-pound dude and a lot of people are intimidated, but he was as gentle as a teddy bear."

Juarez, now 36, said he'll never forget how his friend stopped him from getting involved in a gang when he was a teen.

"He said, 'That's not the life for you, you can be a better person than that,' Juarez said. "He was all about wanting better for everyone else than he had for himself."

Fighting back tears of grief and frustration, Junior's mother Ramona Medina, recalled how she saw few signs of violence when her family moved from Texas to Quincy in 1980.

"It was a nice town but now it's scary to walk the streets and we have to keep an eye on our kids more than we used to," she said. "(Junior) was trying so hard to change the community, to help and try to stop the gang violence, and now he came to this. I hope this can help people realize that we need to stop this. We need to stop it."

Her son's death galvanized a neighborhood of people determined to fight back against another senseless act of violence in their own backyard.

Every night for more than a week they gathered at the corner of First Avenue and C Street to say a prayer and march for peace, many wearing Dallas Cowboys jerseys as a nod to Junior's favorite football team.

Eusebio Alvarez, whose mother still lives in his childhood home across the street, was one of the march organizers. He said the message he wanted to get across to the community, and to Junior's children, is that of justice.

"That's the only way they're going to understand that their dad got shot but we caught the bad guys," he said. "I grew up here. This was something that shouldn't happen in our neighborhood. Our kids should feel safe playing in the park across the street."

One evening in late September four women took turns leading a crowd of about 100 people in praying the Rosary. Many people picked up signs bearing images of Junior and messages for peace written in Spanish and English before lining up behind a Quincy patrol car on C Street.

As dusk settled in the group walked through town chanting "we want justice," "save our children" and "no more violence."

Neighbors emerged from their homes to watch, some joining the crowd that grew to more than 200 people strong before looping slowly back to the park.

Junior was aiming to help, according to Dora Trevino, founder of Stop the Violence in Our Communities, a grassroots organization aimed at increasing community safety.

"Two months ago (Junior) called me and said he didn't like what he was seeing in the community, that he wanted to do more to help kids stay out of gangs," she said.

Like many Quincy residents, Trevino is tired of living in the wake of gang violence. Twelve years ago her own son, Augusto, was killed at the age of 17 by a teenager with gang ties. Since then she's worked with state lawmakers and city officials to find ways to stop further gang violence.

Trevino hopes the tragedy of Junior's death will prompt more people to get involved.

"Maybe now they'll want to do something," she said.