Grief gripped Minneapolis anti-gang advocate killed by gunshot

Weeks before his death, Jimmy Stanback was lauded as a force for good.

"We got some brothers that are fighting real hard in the community. They been fighting for a long time to stop this craziness," VJ Smith of the group MAD DADS told a crowd who'd gathered for an anti-violence rally near the site where 58-year-old Birdell Beeks was shot and killed while sitting in a minivan near Penn Avenue North and 21st Avenue North.

Stanback took the microphone and called on other black men to help stop the rash of north side shootings. "We need to go snatch our little cousins up; our nephews up; our families up and say enough is enough!" he said.

It couldn't have been easy for Stanback, 43, who was dealing with the recent death of his 25-year-old son, Jimmy Stanback Jr. He was shot and killed in an alley just outside Stanback's north side home in an incident still under investigation.

"I'm tired," the older Stanback admitted to the crowd. "I thought like, after a while it was going to get a little easier on me. But on Memorial Day, man," he paused and whistled, "it had a totally different meaning to me."

Two weeks after his impassioned plea to end gun violence, Stanback died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Police said he was dead on arrival at North Memorial Hospital. Emergency personnel were told that Stanback shot himself, according to a search warrant filed earlier this week. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner, however, hasn't yet ruled.

The circumstances surrounding his death bring practical questions. If authorities determine Stanback killed himself, life insurance will not pay Stanback's survivors, including six children, and friends will need to start raising funds to make sure Stanback's family can provide the burial he deserves, said Ron McConico, his longtime friend and mentor.

McConico believes tragedies from Stanback's past pushed him to take his own life. Stanback felt responsible for the shooting death of his younger brother more than 16 years earlier, McConico said, adding that Stanback had brought his sibling into gang life and tried unsuccessfully to get him back out.

McConico, who's worked with young people in north Minneapolis for nearly 40 years and runs an organization called Youth Resources, had known Stanback for more than 30 years, watched him grow up and, like other young men, get sucked into a gang where he sold drugs on the streets.

"There was a time when he finally turned around," said McConico. "I think it was the birth of his first son." McConico says Stanback learned the boy was critically ill, he prayed for his son's health. "His son made it through fine and ... Jimmy rededicated his life to Christ."

Stanback also had similar regrets about his son's death, McConico added. "They had an argument and his son left from Jimmy's home, went out the back door, went out into the alley and got shot. Jimmy again, kind of blamed himself for that."

Jimmy Jr.'s death drove Stanback to the edge of relapse into what McConico called 'destructive habits.' He said Stanback told him he felt an urge to hurt someone and stopped the impulse by burning his hand.

Other friends, including Thomas Dixon, can't believe he would take his own life.

"I know Jimmy ain't just shot himself in the head," said Dixon, a childhood friend of Stanback who saw him the day he died.

"Jimmy was all about saving lives," he added. "Even though, like everybody else, we have our problems, we have our ups and our downs. We deal with our struggles and our own adversities."

According to the police search warrant, no gun was found in the room where the shooting apparently took place, but officers did find a single live .38-caliber bullet.

Investigators also say it appears someone tried to clean the area with ammonia. And the search warrant says hours after the shooting, someone brought a gun to the 4th Precinct police station in north Minneapolis and claimed it was involved.

Police, however, have not confirmed that claim and at this point are not investigating the death as a homicide, said police spokesperson John Elder. Only the medical examiner can determine if Stanback died from homicide or suicide, he added.

Dixon said he's still not clear about some of the details of the shooting so he's not comfortable talking about it. What is clear, he said, is that Stanback's life had impact on others.

Dixon and Stanback founded a now-defunct organization called Project Take Back. The two former gang members who became born-again Christians tried to interrupt violent conflicts.

Although Stanback had lived the gang life in his younger years, he was not a big-time criminal. Stanback had been arrested and convicted of several misdemeanor offenses over the years but had done no prison time.

Dixon recounted stories of how he and Stanback stopped "kids from shooting other kids, from shooting up house parties. Everything was unorthodox, what we did. But when we did it, it made major impact in our community."

At the vigil last month, Stanback told the crowd they, too, can have an impact.

"But we got to come together. And it starts with your own family," he urged. "If you know who they is, start hollering at them, like, 'Man, this is not going to be allowed! I'm going to turn your little butt in if you don't stop!" In Jesus' name!"

Correction (June 30, 2016): A photo caption on an earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the date Birdell Beeks was shot.