LaTanya Gordon, 54, was driving home from a long shift at her caretaker job in Chicago on April 6, 2020. In her car, as she often did, Gordon tuned in to a police scanner—she wanted to be aware of what was going on in South Deering, the South Side neighborhood where she and her family had long-lived.

Around 1 p.m., Gordon heard that a shooting had occurred in South Deering, but she says that she didn’t think much of the alert given that her community struggles with gun violence on a daily basis. It wasn’t until she got home that she learned it was her son, Tyler Malden, who had been shot. Malden had been pronounced dead at the hospital before Gordon was even aware. He was 20 years old.

And according to Gordon and other South Deering residents who spoke with TIME, the shooting was no accident—they believe Malden was targeted due to a conflict with another individual.

Malden was one of Gordon’s six children; Gordon says they were very close. He had two jobs, working at FedEx and a local bowling alley. She describes him as a big, solid man and although he wasn’t “perfect”—”if you confronted him, Tyler was willing to fistfight. He wasn’t afraid to fight,” Gordon tells TIME—he was “not a troublemaker.” And Gordon adds that both she and Malden’s father had raised him to never carry a gun.

The shooting hit Gordon’s younger son, Terrance Malden, 15, particularly hard. Terrance, Gordon says, was a lot like his older brother, not willing to back down to anyone. Less than three months later, on July 10, 2020, Terrance was also shot and killed.

Over a year later, both their deaths remain unsolved.