He wouldn’t give his name or reveal his identity, zipping his sweatshirt over his face to conceal himself from the camera’s eye.
While he insisted on the cloak of anonymity, his words came through in searing candor.
"If you go out there thinking you can't be touched ... you will be touched."
He did allow that he is 19 years old. His neighborhood is too dangerous for him to speak openly, he said, a sentiment viscerally attested to by the wreath that stood on the sidewalk a few paces away.
At that spot, near the corner of McDonald Avenue and Third Street, 54-year-old Manuel Lopez was beaten to death by two teenagers in broad daylight on Jan. 19.
As the young man spoke under a gray sky and light drizzle, area religious leaders were going door-to-door during their Feb. 27 peace march against violence.
No one is above the perils of neighborhood violence, he said.
“If you go out there thinking that you are number one and you can’t be touched, you will be touched,” he said, using the common street slang for being hit with gunfire.
The curbside memorial to a man beaten to death weeks before on the sidewalk near the interview.