Friends, family mourn 10-year-old shooting victim

By Ken Raymond
The Oklahoman

A few days ago, Mack “Papa” McCray was a typical 10-year-old boy, playing with his neighborhood pals and shooting hoops outside his northwest Oklahoma City home.

Now, McCray’s playing days are over, and the smiling boy - whose innocent eyes sparkle in snapshots taken during his too-short life - is gone.

“He was a lovely child with the love of God in him,” said Mack’s grandmother, Zee Swanegan. “He was just a sweet child.”

About 4 a.m. Tuesday, someone walked up to McCray’s home at 1132 NW 105 and fired gunshots through the windows into a front bedroom, police said. Three bullet holes were visible in the glass Wednesday.

McCray was struck in the head as he slept and died Wednesday at OU Medical Center.
Police have not speculated on a motive in the killing. No one has been arrested.
“We were ... playing basketball,” said 12-year-old Randy Woods, one of four boys who regularly played ball with McCray. “That was before it happened. He (McCray) went back to his house, then that night we heard the gunshots.”

McCray was a fifth-grade student at Trinity School. His teacher, Jammye Scott, said Thursday she won’t allow any other students to sit in McCray’s chair.
Mack liked to dance. He was the first one to offer help, she said. And in honor of him, his classmates released balloons outdoors. They wrote poems and drew pictures of Mack and then set them on his desk.

“They don’t understand how that (his death) could happen,” Scott said. “Well, no one knows why this happens.”

Gina Wilson, a family friend, said the boy’s mother, Alicia Swanegan, has surrounded herself with family and friends.

“She’s a wonderful lady,” Wilson said. “A working mom. The family’s very tight-knit. Her mother lives right around the corner from her. Her father, too.”
Wilson said McCray was a frequent churchgoer and a “very good boy.” She said he and his brother, David Allen Higgins, were not involved in the gangs that neighbors said have moved into the neighborhood.

Even so, the family has faced trouble.

Higgins, 20, pleaded guilty in September to an Oklahoma County charge of marijuana possession and received a 3-year deferred sentence, court records show. He was ordered to perform 80 hours of community service and undergo drug treatment.

Swanegan, 37, was arrested on a drug possession complaint in Oklahoma City, police records show.

Feb. 12, 2004, she drove past a stop sign without slowing down and was stopped, according to a police report. An officer found a plastic bag of marijuana in her pocket and arrested her, the report shows, but she received only a ticket for failure to stop.

Swanegan sought a protective order in 1996 and four others in 1998, court records show. She claimed she was attacked by two women and threatened by three men, including two whom she identified as drug dealers. She said one of the men shoved McCray and cut someone else with a knife.

She also has received at least 28 Oklahoma City tickets since 1995, including citations for disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, obstructing an officer, driving without insurance, speeding and parking in a handicapped zone.

Fifth-grader at a private school

But no matter what else may have been going on in her life, a neighbor said, Swanegan doted on her children.

That care included enrolling McCray in Trinity School, a private school described on its Web site as a place for “students with average to above average intelligence who learn differently due to dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD or sensory processing issues.”
A school spokeswoman said tuition costs are often decreased with the help of need-based scholarships. Full-price tuition for a fifth-grader like McCray is about $7,500 a year.

Neighbors, who did not want their names published for fear of reprisals, said the NW 105 neighborhood is in decline. They said the area once was home to retired professionals, but since they left the area the crime rate seems to have gone up.

These days, pit bull terriers escape from flimsy fences and prowl the streets with distressing regularity, neighbors said, and teens wearing hooded sweatshirts stroll or cruise past at all hours.

“We are like prisoners,” a resident said.

Jan. 15, a 22-year-old man was shot in his left foot near McCray’s home, according to a police report. The victim was walking west on NW 105 when two black males in a car spoke to him, then apparently opened fire.

The victim fled a short distance to a house at 1204 NW 105, just two doors west of McCray’s home, the report shows.

Owners of an in-home day-care center nearby also reported damage from a drive-by shooting. They said the back window of a vehicle was shot out.

Still, McCray’s death marks an escalation in violence.

“A drive-by I could maybe live with,” one neighbor said. “But walking up and shooting in the window? That’s too much.”

Contributing: Staff writers Nolan Clay, Jim Epperson III and Josh Rabe