Jamal was in a good place. He was enrolled in a program that employed him while he was earning his high school equivalency degree. He enjoyed the work — doing landscaping all over the city. He had made good friends, he liked having money in his pocket, and he was doing something positive.
Until he was shot in the face.
Jamal, then 24 years old, was shopping for a shirt after work in downtown San Francisco when a car pulled up to the curb next to him. The window rolled down, and the passenger called his name. Jamal turned and walked toward the car. The bullet was probably already entering the barrel of the pistol when he caught a glimpse of the shooter — someone he had never seen before and hasn’t seen since. The bullet tore Jamal’s mouth from his face. An ambulance came, and the crew strapped him to a gurney. “I had to fight with the medics,” Jamal recalls. “I was choking from the blood, and they were forcing me to lie on my back. I kept thinking, ‘Don’t let me die here. I don’t wanna die.’”
[For more on this story by Claire Conway, go to https://medium.com/ucsf-magazi...unities-3694bb80ea23]
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