‘He loved life’: Woman honors brother’s legacy at March Against Murder

By Drew Marine

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    PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — Two years ago this month, 65-year-old Ricky Malone Sr. was shot and killed in North Portland.

“Three o’clock in the morning, he was out canning and three juveniles came up on him and wanted his car,” Malone’s sister, Donnece White, said. “He was not giving up his car and he was shot point blank with a shotgun.”

White said every Oct. 14, her family visits the place he was killed and each year it doesn’t get easier.

“Every October, we go into a little slump because we know what happened,” she said. “We’ve lost our parents but it’s so much harder because of how it happened. My brother was a fun-loving father and grandfather. He loved life.”

White said it happened less than a mile from McCoy Park, where a “March Against Murder” rally was held Saturday to take a stand against violence in Portland. White shared her brother’s story there.

“I believe it’s important so other people can hear my story. So maybe that might touch a bell, a light bulb might go off,” she said. “So somebody else doesn’t end up like my family. (My family) has been affected by this.”

So far this year, Portland Police said there have been 66 homicides. The city is on track to beat the record number of homicides in a calendar year, set in 1987. In 2021, there have been nearly 950 shootings and 50 people have died in those.

“If you save one person, it’s like saving 10,000,” Lionel Irving with Love is Stronger said. “When a young guy dies at 20 years old – look at what his lineage was and could’ve been. How many generations did we just lose? We’re losing our best and brightest kids. That’s the untold part of this story.”

“This is a city-wide issue. We’ve been to Gresham, we’ve been to Northeast and it’s only right we come to North Portland to make sure everyone understands that no matter where you live in Portland this issue affects you,” Royal Harris, the organizer of the March Against Murder rally, said.

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