Jonathan Bandler|Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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Tish Garland was 12 years older than her brother Rubin Davis. But the gap felt like it had narrowed and they were comfortable hanging out with each other once he reached adulthood.
That ended abruptly with a single bullet to the chest and Garland is left only with memories, regrets and frustration.
“I was just getting to know him. He was good to talk to and be around,” she said. “It's been very hard not having him here.”
Saturday marked 10years since the 26-year-old Davis was killed at 4th Street Park in Mount Vernon, one of dozens of homicides city detectives have been unable to solve over the past few decades.
The unwillingness of witnesses to come forward in Davis' killing mirrors a common theme in many of those cases. But Garland is most troubled that one of those witnesses is Davis' nephew; that theclose bond between the two men was no match for the "no snitching"credo of the streets.
Police officials had no comment on the case other than to say it remained an active investigation and to urge anyone with information to call detectives at 914-665-2510.
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Davis and Garland had different mothers and when Garland learned in the mid-1990s that she had more siblings than she knew,she implored their dad, Glenn Davis, to bring them all together.
So he did, driving Rubin and his siblings up from Maryland when Rubin was 11 so they could spend an afternoon with their Mount Vernon kin.
More visits followed, some short, some long, and Garland as a young woman didn't always have time to spend with her adolescent brother.
“He was always talking. I even tried to pay him to stop talking sometimes,” she said. “He never got that money. Just kept talking.”
But Rubin did heed some of her advice. He wanted to be tall like the 6-foot-3 Garland. She told him he could be if he drank chocolate milk. So he did. Always.
And by the time he was done with college, Rubin had grown to 6-foot-5.
"He became my little big brother," she said.
Glenn Davis, a postal worker in Delaware, grew up in Mount Vernon but moved on after entering the Navy. He believed his military bearing andreligious upbringing contributed to his son always trying to meet his high standards.
He said Rubin Davis had avoided the streets, worked hard on his education and was dedicated to helping people.
"Those, for whatever reason, are the ones the Lord takes from us," he said.
Rubin Davis went to University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, where he got a master’s degree in criminology. He came to New York to live for the first time in early 2010 and moved in with Garland. He brought along his nephew, who was really a brother to him, Garland said.
Their bond was forged as children. It was strengthenedone day when they were fooling around lighting cans on fire and tossing them and Rubin accidentally burned his nephew's arm.
"Rubin never forgave himself for that and after that he always protected him," Garland said.
His dream was to become a court officer, she said. While waiting to be hired as one,he took a job at MasterCard and then was a counselor at Phoenix House, a residential treatment center in Northern Westchester.
Garland enjoyed spending time with Davis and was glad he convinced her to come to a party for his 26th birthdayjust six weeks before he was killed.
"It was an awesome night," she said. "Fun to be around him."
But Davis and Garland had a falling out a few weeks later. He had moved out of her home and into an apartment in the Bronx, but he didn’t take his nephew with him. Garlandwas upset about that. The nephew owed money for things.
Davis promised that week to talk with the nephew and he and Garland patched things up over the phone. He would come for Sunday dinner and things would be fine.
He arrived in town while Garland was in church and went to find his nephew at the park.
Soon after she got home, the nephew ran in screaming that Davishad been shot.
By the time Garland made it the three blocks to the park, police had arrived and kept her back as she tried to get to her brother. She did manage to scoop up his Yankees hat which had fallen to the pavement. She still has it. An old one of his she put on his casket.
Garland has cobbled together some details of what happened by speaking with people who were there, people who have not cooperated with the investigation.
The nephew had won some money in a dice game. When Davis confronted him about the money he owed Garland, he gave it to him.
Someone from the dice game demanded the money from Davis, brandishing a gun.He wouldn't give it up and, whether intentional or not, a single shot was fired.
For more than seven years, Garland could not bring herself to go back to the park. But she finally did in 2019.
She had joined the group Saturdays with Shah, a team of residents that cleans up around the city on weekends. The 4th Street Park was scheduled for cleanup and Garland hadn't told any of them about her anxiety. She said shetook a deep breath and walked in, and is glad she did.
On Saturday she was back with friends and relatives for a memorial ceremony.
Glenn Davis wants justice for his son but he's philosophical about the street culture that took his life. He understands the young man who killed him "wasn't born with a gun in his hand."
"He became who he did because of his life experiences," Davis said, adding that young men who grow up in that environment "suffer from their own form of PTSD."
"What they're being forced to endure is causing them to be the people whocommit these crimes."
Glenn Davisspoke at a prayer vigil in the park a week after Rubin's death and the lasting image he has from that day is all the young kids who were there.
"It made me thinkof every hope I had for him when he was a young boy;every happiness I wanted for him; and how I never thought about him being shot to death," Davis recalled. "And I thought how some of those kids there that day the same thing was going to happen to them."
He said he once met with policeand a man who had witnessed the shooting. When the detectives left the room the man told Davis there was no way he could cooperate, that he'd be killed for it.
"If you can't change their minds, Rubin's killer will never be brought to justice," Davis said.
False hope for the family came in 2016 when someone from the police department called Garland to say there was a break in the case and they would let themknow when an arrest was made.
But then there was no follow-up and soon police were not returning her calls.
The following year, the FBI offered awards for information in Davis' killing and four others from 2014 and 2016. None of the other cases have been solved, either.
It took until last November for police to mend fences with Garland.
“They absolutely apologized, so it's OK now,” she said. “They let me know they haven’t forgotten about his case.”
Davis didn’t grow up in Mount Vernon and wasn’t widely known there. So Garland understands that no one in the large crowd that day would step up for a stranger felled by a bullet and tell police what they saw. There’s a code in the street, after all.
Davis' nephew? That’s a different story. And his silence is bad enough. But that he wears it like a badge of honor – she saved an Instagram post of his about not snitching–angers her to the core.
“You’re the only one on the planet who could ease our pain and you refuse to do it? And you’re proud of it? I don’t understand that,” Garland said. “I can’t imagine what his nightmares are like. Because I have my own.”
Twitter: @jonbandler
