Foss High School security officer Eugene Haynes-Ransom keeps his eye out for trouble in school hallways, watching video monitors. He’s a Foss grad.The News Tribune.com
KRIS SHERMAN; kris.sherman@thenewstribune.com
Published: January 20th, 2008
Tears flow easily, and dreams remain unfulfilled in the East Side Tacoma home of Ry Sou and Rorth Kok.
Sometimes, when she can no longer tolerate the soul-deep ache, Sou walks up the stairs to her son’s bedroom, sits on his sleigh bed, and talks to him.
She thinks about opening the closet but does not.
The memories of her son, Samnang Kok, are too strong there, she says. They lie in the look and feel and smell of the clothing he wore as a student at Foss High School. They hide in his shoes. They lurk in his belongings.
Samnang Kok, a 17-year-old junior, was shot and killed a year ago in a school hallway, minutes before classes were to resume following winter break. He died there, next to a bank of lockers, on Jan. 3, 2007.
He was shot three times with a 9 mm handgun.
Douglas S. Chanthabouly, then an 18-year-old junior, is charged with first-degree murder in Sam Kok’s death. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in Pierce County Jail awaiting trial.
Sou and Kok miss their son every day, their grief perhaps scabbed over a bit but still raw.
“It’s hard,” Sou says, balancing her 3-year-old grandson, Makhai – Sam’s son – on her lap. She speaks in halting English, thick with the accent of her native Cambodia, but her pain needs no translation.
“He say every day, ‘Is Daddy gone?’” Sou says, retrieving the small, pink plastic clock her grandson pushed off the table in play. “‘Daddy go heaven, now,’ he say. ‘I hate someone kill my daddy.’”
Makhai lives with his mother, Tiari Johnson, but frequently spends time with his grandparents.
The family hasn’t filed a claim against the Tacoma School District, and Sam Kok’s parents don’t seem interested in one.
They’re more concerned, they say, with the welfare of their grandson and of their daughter, Lisa, a freshman at Lincoln High School. The couple also has two grown sons.
Sou, a cashier at the Emerald Queen Casino, says she’s talked to administrators at Lincoln about the need to keep her daughter safe.
“I want all the students to be good,” she adds. “I don’t want trouble.”
Sou was pregnant with Sam when she emigrated to the United States. She gave him a name that means good luck.
“I come from Cambodia, and I find freedom,” she says, pausing to pluck a napkin from the table and use it to blot tears. Kok does the same, wadding the napkin up and wiping it across his lined face.
“I take care of my son,” Sou continues. “I go to work. My son go to school. … When I am old, I plan my son take care of me.”
“He’s a good son,” Kok says quietly, his small frame quaking with the effort. “He help a lot. He good kid. He really smart.”
The couple expected Sam to watch his own boy grow to manhood, too.
When Sam wasn’t studying or helping his parents around the house, he watched cartoons with Makhai or played simple games with his son, an exuberant, small moving object.
“He like a small car,” Sou says, pointing at her grandson. “Zoom, zoom, zoom. … He look like his daddy,” she adds, pointing to Makhai’s dark, shining eyes.
It is those same eyes, in the larger Sam version, that peer at the world from above a teenage smirk in the life-size photo that hangs on the wall in the bedroom that was Sam’s. Below it rests a mini shrine – candles; an ornate cross; a vase of pink, orange and yellow flowers; incense; a pack of cigarettes and a lighter awaiting their owner.
“I look at the pictures. I cry,” Sou says. “I talk. I say, ‘Why? Why? My son go to school. Why my son die?’”
Kris Sherman: 253-597-8659
KRIS SHERMAN; kris.sherman@thenewstribune.com
Published: January 20th, 2008
Tears flow easily, and dreams remain unfulfilled in the East Side Tacoma home of Ry Sou and Rorth Kok.
Sometimes, when she can no longer tolerate the soul-deep ache, Sou walks up the stairs to her son’s bedroom, sits on his sleigh bed, and talks to him.
She thinks about opening the closet but does not.
The memories of her son, Samnang Kok, are too strong there, she says. They lie in the look and feel and smell of the clothing he wore as a student at Foss High School. They hide in his shoes. They lurk in his belongings.
Samnang Kok, a 17-year-old junior, was shot and killed a year ago in a school hallway, minutes before classes were to resume following winter break. He died there, next to a bank of lockers, on Jan. 3, 2007.
He was shot three times with a 9 mm handgun.
Douglas S. Chanthabouly, then an 18-year-old junior, is charged with first-degree murder in Sam Kok’s death. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in Pierce County Jail awaiting trial.
Sou and Kok miss their son every day, their grief perhaps scabbed over a bit but still raw.
“It’s hard,” Sou says, balancing her 3-year-old grandson, Makhai – Sam’s son – on her lap. She speaks in halting English, thick with the accent of her native Cambodia, but her pain needs no translation.
“He say every day, ‘Is Daddy gone?’” Sou says, retrieving the small, pink plastic clock her grandson pushed off the table in play. “‘Daddy go heaven, now,’ he say. ‘I hate someone kill my daddy.’”
Makhai lives with his mother, Tiari Johnson, but frequently spends time with his grandparents.
The family hasn’t filed a claim against the Tacoma School District, and Sam Kok’s parents don’t seem interested in one.
They’re more concerned, they say, with the welfare of their grandson and of their daughter, Lisa, a freshman at Lincoln High School. The couple also has two grown sons.
Sou, a cashier at the Emerald Queen Casino, says she’s talked to administrators at Lincoln about the need to keep her daughter safe.
“I want all the students to be good,” she adds. “I don’t want trouble.”
Sou was pregnant with Sam when she emigrated to the United States. She gave him a name that means good luck.
“I come from Cambodia, and I find freedom,” she says, pausing to pluck a napkin from the table and use it to blot tears. Kok does the same, wadding the napkin up and wiping it across his lined face.
“I take care of my son,” Sou continues. “I go to work. My son go to school. … When I am old, I plan my son take care of me.”
“He’s a good son,” Kok says quietly, his small frame quaking with the effort. “He help a lot. He good kid. He really smart.”
The couple expected Sam to watch his own boy grow to manhood, too.
When Sam wasn’t studying or helping his parents around the house, he watched cartoons with Makhai or played simple games with his son, an exuberant, small moving object.
“He like a small car,” Sou says, pointing at her grandson. “Zoom, zoom, zoom. … He look like his daddy,” she adds, pointing to Makhai’s dark, shining eyes.
It is those same eyes, in the larger Sam version, that peer at the world from above a teenage smirk in the life-size photo that hangs on the wall in the bedroom that was Sam’s. Below it rests a mini shrine – candles; an ornate cross; a vase of pink, orange and yellow flowers; incense; a pack of cigarettes and a lighter awaiting their owner.
“I look at the pictures. I cry,” Sou says. “I talk. I say, ‘Why? Why? My son go to school. Why my son die?’”
Kris Sherman: 253-597-8659
No comments:
Post a Comment