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LAURA YUEN: On her worst nights, Princess Titus cleans. Titus will sort and sweep until 4:00 in the morning as if looking for something lost. Her long braids dangle to her waist as she picks up paper wads and old toys from the creaky wood floors. Titus' son Anthony, was killed last 4th of July when gang members fired into the backyard of a home in the Jordan neighborhood of North Minneapolis. Anthony was 16.

PRINCESS TITUS: After my son was shot and killed, I packed up everything in my house, and I wanted to move. And my therapist said it was because I just wanted things close, and I didn't want to lose anything else.

LAURA YUEN: This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Back in 1995 when Titus was 20 and pregnant, she took the train from Chicago to Minnesota. It was the dead of winter. Titus had her toddler son Jessie, and was several months pregnant with Anthony. Titus says she thought she had finally escaped the rough streets of Chicago's south side when she arrived in the Twin Cities.

PRINCESS TITUS: And I remember there was like 60 murders in Chicago that month. And I just didn't want either one of my kids to be one of those statistics down the line.

LAURA YUEN: She eventually settled into the heart of North Minneapolis. It's a place where community leaders say boys are essentially born into a gun culture. Titus says she tried to fend off the clusters of young men gathering in front of her house on Thomas Avenue or what the boys on the street called T Block.

PRINCESS TITUS: I remember chasing those kids down the block. I walked up to him, and I said, y'all just can't gang bang right here. If y'all want a gang bang, go down in front of your mama's house and gang bang. And my exact words was, I'll be damned if one of my kids is hit by a bullet that's meant for one of you.

LAURA YUEN: But despite these efforts, the warfare that led Titus to flee Chicago seemed to surround her family's new home in Minneapolis. Her oldest child, Jessie McDaniel, couldn't escape the lure of the streets and in his early teens joined a gang. McDaniel carried a gun and says it wasn't hard to find one from older guys in the neighborhood.

JESSIE MCDANIEL: This one, he was hitting up the gun stores, and he was robbing the gun stores. He was coming to the hood. We was just buying them. Like, everybody got a gun. I'll buy that gun off your hip with you right there. Oh, you got a little fight, let you buy that from you right now. What's up? $200 right now, what's up?

LAURA YUEN: McDaniel just turned 18. He's skinny with a quick smile. After his brother Anthony was killed, McDaniel got a tattoo scrawled across his chest. It reads, "Long live, Prince Charming." That was Anthony's nickname. McDaniel still has a hard time processing the idea that Anthony is gone instead of him.

After all, it was Anthony, the middle child who stepped up to fill the role of oldest sibling. He was the one who took care of his little sister, cooked and cleaned. McDaniel says his younger brother was not in a gang, but before his death began to veer closer to the streets after taking cues from him. Police don't believe Anthony was the intended target when he was killed.

The rest of Anthony's family was at Minnehaha Park for a 4th of July picnic. His brother, grandmother, and mother, Princess, were all there.

PRINCESS TITUS: And the fireworks were just about to start. And we got a phone call. And they said Anthony's been shot. My first response was, he's gone.

ARNETTA PHILLIPS: All of a sudden, Princess just turned around and she screamed, and she just said, "Mama Netta, we got to go."

LAURA YUEN: Arnetta Phillips is Anthony's grandmother.

ARNETTA PHILLIPS: And I said, "Go where?" And she said, "They're saying Anthony is dead. Anthony is dead."

LAURA YUEN: Phillips remembers racing through red lights with Princess Titus until they reached a house on Fremont Avenue, 15 blocks from Titus's home. At first, police wouldn't let the two women see the body. Phillips says, Titus was desperate to know if the dead boy lying in the backyard was wearing a watch she had just given her son for his birthday.

ARNETTA PHILLIPS: When the coroners lifted his body up to put him in the body bag, that's when we saw the watch. And that's when she saw his clothing and his new shoes and everything that he had on. And she just cried. And she's just like, that's my baby. That's my baby. That's my baby. Why? That's my baby.

LAURA YUEN: Anthony died from a single 38 caliber gunshot wound to his back. He and his friends had been ambushed by gang members as they walked to a neighborhood graduation party. Yet, after Anthony's death, Princess Titus says the gunfire didn't stop, even as mourners gathered in front of her house.

PRINCESS TITUS: They shot him on the 4th of July. And then on the 5th, they shot down the block from my house. And on the 6th, they shot into my yard. And it's like these kids were still trying to kill somebody.

LAURA YUEN: In the coming days, Anthony's brother, Jessie McDaniel, thought about revenge.

JESSIE MCDANIEL: I could have had somebody easily whack one of them dudes. But two days later, they got bumped off. They got took to jail. So I couldn't do anything

LAURA YUEN: Police quickly arrested a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy in the shooting. They're now serving time. According to court documents, they wore black bandannas to mask their faces. One fired a silver semi-automatic handgun with a brown-grain handle. The other used a .22-caliber revolver.

Authorities say the two shooters belonged to the Young N' Thuggin' gang and fired at Anthony's group because one of the kids he was walking with, known as Ray-Ray, was in the rival T Block gang, named after Thomas Avenue.

Community leaders and pastors on the north side are calling the shootings an epidemic. And even scientists agree. Epidemiologist Jon Roesler, owes his job at the State Health Department to the violent crime wave of the 1990s that resulted in the city's nickname, Murderapolis.

Behind his desk in downtown St. Paul, he analyzes data entered by hospital emergency rooms. And he studies gun-related trauma as if it were a disease. But in these cases, the agent is not a bacteria, it's a bullet.

JON ROESLER: We look at the impact of a bullet upon a person. And we look at the unique environment in which that injury occurs.

LAURA YUEN: Roesler says that as Minnesotans, we use guns to kill ourselves much more often than we kill one another. And in most parts of Minnesota, the vast majority of firearm injuries are unintentional or self-inflicted. But the exception, Roesler says, is in the Twin Cities metro area where assaults are the leading cause, and the victims are often young and Black.

JON ROESLER: The African-American population suffers a disproportionate amount of the burden of firearm injury in Minnesota. It just really stands out.

LAURA YUEN: As the family of Anthony Titus struggles to deal with his murder, his brother Jessie McDaniel is searching for his own purpose. McDaniel says his brother's shooters were once his friends. Meanwhile, he's recently lost four good friends to gunfire, including 17-year-old Alisha Neely.

JESSIE MCDANIEL: Why is this happening? That's the same question I'm asking myself. Why is everybody dying and going to jail? It's the only thing I hear about.

LAURA YUEN: Once so hooked on street life that he lived out of a car, McDaniel has moved back home. He spends several nights a week with a youth group at a community center, mentoring younger kids. He tells himself that Anthony's murder was a sign for his older brother to change course.

JESSIE MCDANIEL: I still think about this all the time. Like, what am I supposed to do now? I'm doing this music. I'm like, am I supposed to keep making music? Like, what am I supposed to do? Something supposed to be different.

LAURA YUEN: McDaniel turned his bedroom into a recording studio. And he wrote a song about Anthony's death.

JESSIE MCDANIEL (SINGING): Your love for fireworks

On the 4th of July

Like damn, I lost my brother

On the 4th of July

It's crazy

LAURA YUEN: It would be a fitting ending to this story to say that McDaniel has sworn off the street life. But it's not so simple. Shortly after Anthony was killed, McDaniel says he was scared, so he bought a new gun. He says he gave it to a friend and has no idea who has it now. Laura Yuen, Minnesota Public Radio News Minneapolis.

JESSIE MCDANIEL (SINGING): Your life can change in seconds

I hope you understand

You a boy without a gun

But with a gun you a man

You feeling real tough

Surrounded by all your friends

You just started your life

You about to watch your end

You took my brother life

He was only 16

You wasted your life

Just to do 16

I got high boss

Spending high at 16

But I can't live my dream

Inside a penitentiary

That was history

I'm focused on my future

Filled with big friends

Saying this ain't what I'm used to

But I get used to it

Cause I'm going to do it

Go hard on my music

Where's my mind

I'm about to lose it

Watch the fireworks

Fill up the sky

Still the pain--