DETROIT (WXYZ) — For nearly 20 years, Maundretta Straughter and her husband Daryll have been side by side. He was a man known for his strength, affection and kindness.
"He was amazing, everybody loved my husband — loved him. He watched and protected everybody and now, he’s gone. Someone took him from me for no reason," Maundretta Straughter said. "He didn’t deserve that.”
He was also well known in Greektown, working in the area as a security guard for more than 20 years. Those who knew him say protecting others was what he loved to do.
On Saturday around 8 p.m., Daryll Straughter was just about to start work. He was outside the Athens Liquor Store when there was argument about line-cutting. He stepped in to help and was fatally shot.
The man accused of shooting Daryll Straughter is in custody but now, four kids are left without their father.
“I hope the person that did this to him gets what they deserve because he really hurt a lot of people," Daryll Straughter's daughter Laquances said. "He hurt us. He really hurt us.”
For members of Ceasefire Detroit, a community violence prevention program, Daryll was known as "Big D," a man they came to know while walking the downtown streets to help keep the peace.
“Just a real good guy, real good guy," said Quincy Smith, a community organizer with Ceasefire Detroit. "To hear what happened and why it happened, it hurts. It hurts all of us.”
“For this to be purposely done to him, for literally no cause, something has to change," said Ceasefire Detroit outreach worker George T. Ward Jr. "I hope Daryl did not live his life in vain.”
As his family tries to wrap their minds around why this could happen, they’re wrapping their arms around each other, remembering the lives Daryll Straughter touched, marked by the countless awards from the city for his heroism.
“He deserved a thousand rewards for the lives that he impacted and the footprints that he left," Daryll Straughter's oldest son Jamar Ferguson said. "This is devastating to a lot of us, to lose an angel like him.”
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