COLUMBUS, Ohio — Victor Peoples sat in a fold-out chair on the sidewalk off East Fulton Street, Wednesday afternoon. It’s a location close to his heart.
“Actually this spot…this spot that we’re sitting at right now is actually the location where Marcus was killed at,” he said.
Peoples still sees it, arriving that warm June night in 2014. His nephew, Marcus Van Cleaf, had been shot and killed.
Seven years later, some has changed. The nightclub that once stood is gone. Peoples credits key players in the city for making that happen. Still, he says there are no suspects, arrests or answers in his nephew’s murder.
Seven years later, Peoples says he knows there’s a growing number of families who know his family’s struggle.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “It’s crazy, it’s disheartening all at the same time because these individuals who are out here killing people, it’s like it’s the wild wild west.”
To experience losing a loved one once most people will never imagine. For Peoples, it’s a wound that has been reopened three times.
Marcus was killed in 2014. Javon Van Cleaf was shot and killed in 2016. In 2020, Erick Peeples was killed.
Three fathers. Three brothers. Three nephews. Three lives.
“I don’t think no one knows the impact that it has on the family that is left to grieve,” Peoples said.
As Columbus homicides push 130, Peoples turns to the people in the city to talk with each other, not at each other.
“We just got to do better,” he said. “I understand a disagreement. I understand, hey, I may not like this person, but to take one’s life because of it… it makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever.”