When You Don't Return Home From Work Safely

When you work a part-time job with minimal to no benefits, you don’t tend to worry that someone will want what you already don’t have. You go to work, walk home because this job doesn’t pay for a vehicle, let alone the monthly insurance cost. Thrown over your shoulder is your backpack with the only things you can afford to have. Your thoughts, written and drawn out in a notebook with worn bindings.

This was my cousin, Jaymes, walking home from his job just before 6 am on August 27th. A normal day, just like all the others.

Unfortunately, this day would be different. Jaymes was robbed of his backpack, only holding writings and drawings, and shot in his abdomen by someone who thought he had something worth stealing. The following days Jaymes would be on a ventilator in ICU, going through multiple surgeries, essentially needing his bladder to be completely rebuilt. Weeks later he still is enduring horrible pain, and unsure if the surgery to his bladder has worked, more surgeries will be needed, or if this is something that will follow him medically the rest of his life.

Our family has put together a GoFundMe to help him navigate through the upcoming months with surgeries and bills both from the hospital and the inevitable lack of work. I would like to thank the ClayCord for posting about his attack (http://claycord.com/2020/09/16/money-being-raised-for-concord-man-who-was-shot-robbed-near-circle-k-on-ygnacio-valley-rd/) and would ask that anyone please share my cousin’s story and GoFundMe. https://www.gofundme.com/support-for-jaymes

I hope that everyone reading this makes it to and from work today without being a victim of a violent act. You never think it will happen to yourself or a family member until it does.