TAMPA, Fla. – A day after Tampa’s police chief addressed the record levels of gun violence in East Tampa, two grieving families are pleading for information and calling on the community for help.

What You Need To Know

  • Two families lost their sons to gun violence

  • They are calling on the community for help

  • Kyler Brown was killed Nov. 30, Zavon Gundy was killed Jan. 21

  • Tampa's police chief recently addressed the record level of gun violence in East Tampa

​Doves, music, and a memorial service help with the pain, but for parents, nothing can erase the heartbreak of losing a child. That’s the reality now for the families of Kyler Brown and Zavon Gundy.

“Mother’s Day, I had to celebrate without my son,” said Shiwanda Brown, Kyler Brown’s mother. “His birthday, I’ll have to unfortunately have to celebrate out here at the graveyard.”

Kyler Brown was killed on November 30 and Gundy just a few weeks after on January 21.

“Best friends, same gun violence, and I think there has to be a better way and our community has to respond to conflict,” pastor and community leader Elvis Piggott said. “Our young men in the community, a better way than how they’re responding.”

Kyler Brown’s case has been solved, but the people responsible for Gundy’s death still have not been caught. And little information has been brought forward to help solve the case.

“I just want someone to tell what happened to my baby. He didn’t deserve that. We miss him every day and everybody else, gets to walk around like everything is ok and we don’t,” Gundy’s mother Felecia Jackson said.

"I just don’t understand how another person can walk around and act like this is ok,” said Xavier Gundy, Gundy’s father. “Look at us, do any of us look ok?”

“The problem in the community is, we don’t want to talk. But when do we talk? When it’s your family,” Brown said.