On a crisp fall day in 2022, Titiana Bogar-Curry stood in front of her home in Rochester, New York, among her son’s friends. They were gathered to memorialize Ly’Saun Curry, her 18-year-old son, on the second anniversary of his death. Ly’Saun was shot and killed on October 2, 2020. 

Bogar-Curry’s younger son, Anthony Miller-Curry, was at the memorial, messing around with his friends and trying to ensure they all released their balloons simultaneously. Her daughters — Ly’Naisha, Omariana, and Estrellita — were also at the memorial. Less than two years later, Bogar-Curry would be standing beside her daughters as she buried Anthony, who was 19 when he was shot and killed.

Bogar-Curry had just begun to process the loss of her elder son when the younger one died. “The hurt is much stronger,” she said on the fourth anniversary of Ly’Saun’s death. “Some nights I have dreams about them. They’re always with me, always. Everything I do, I try to involve them.” 

Rochester, which sits along Lake Ontario in Western New York, is a small Rust Belt city once known as the headquarters of the Eastman Kodak Company. Like many American cities, it has a long history of segregation, which continues to shape residents’ lives today. According to 2022 U.S. Census data, almost half of the children in Rochester were living in poverty, which is among some of the highest rates in the country for cities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reports that counties with high poverty rates have firearm homicide rates 4.5 higher than that of their more affluent counterparts. 

Homicides in Rochester peaked in 2021, the same year that 11 other American cities broke their single-year homicide records, hitting 81 fatalities, 57 of which involved a firearm. The city’s Black population makes up 77 percent of homicide victims, yet only 38 percent of the overall population. 

Despite the drop in shootings across Rochester since the pandemic surge, Bogar-Curry said she feels neglected by the city’s Police Department. “I feel like they solve cases that they want to solve,” she said. “I feel like once our kids get killed in the streets, they work on it for a while, and then it’s just forgotten about.” 

The Rochester Police Department declined to comment for this story.

After Ly’Saun was killed, Bogar-Curry’s work at Strong Memorial Hospital, assisting patients undergoing CT scans, became more difficult. Many of them were young Black men with gunshot wounds. She remembered one man in particular, who came in with a gunshot wound and was about the same age her older son had been when he was killed. “As we were getting him on the table, he didn’t want to let my hand go, and he was just like, ‘Don’t let me die. Don’t let me die.’” When her younger son was shot in 2023, he was placed on life support at the hospital for two days. She left Strong after that. Now, she works at Rochester General as a receptionist and is studying to be a nurse.

On every birthday and on each anniversary of her sons’ deaths, Bogar-Curry gathers her daughters and the friends of her sons at Riverside Cemetery, where they are buried near each other, to celebrate their lives.

“Yes, it is a normalized thing,” said Bogar-Curry. “I think these kids are now to the point where they’re expecting one of their friends to die.” 

Every day she wears black and orange, the color of gun violence prevention; they were Ly’Saun and Anthony’s favorite colors. Her hair is dyed orange, her nails painted orange, and her accessories are black. Bogar-Curry keeps going by constantly reminding herself that she has a purpose. “I believe that they didn’t have a chance to live to their full potential,” she said. “So as their mom, it is my job to continue to carry that full potential for them. It is like they have a legacy — that everyone needs to understand who they were, not just a gunshot victim.”

Anthony Miller-Curry, second from left, attends the balloon release honoring his older brother, Ly’Saun, on the second anniversary of his death, October 2, 2022. Anthony would be shot and killed within a year.
Titiana Bogar-Curry cries out after a balloon release honoring her son, Ly’Saun, on the anniversary of his death. In his honor, she wears orange, his favorite color. Ly’Saun was 18 years old when he was shot 12 times by a co-worker on Trenaman Street, following an argument at work. Titiana has become a mentor to Ly’Saun’s friends as they deal with his death.
Josh Lowe, a close friend of Ly’Saun, comforts Bogar-Curry at the Monroe County Supreme Court after the man who killed her older son was found guilty of second-degree murder. He was later sentenced to 90 years to life.
Bogar-Curry gets ready for the September 2, 2023, funeral of her younger son, Anthony, who was 19 when he was shot during the annual Puerto Rican Festival in the early morning hours of August 5, 2023. Two nights before, three people were shot on the same street, North Clinton Avenue, leading to the cancellation of the festival’s parade, which was scheduled to take place the day Anthony was shot. No one has been arrested for the shooting, in which a 22-year-old man was also killed, and three other people were injured.
Kiara Jackson, a friend of the Curry brothers, dances with friends while getting ready for Anthony’s funeral. Young people who have lost a friend often make a funeral into a celebration of their life.
Lynn Henderson, one of Anthony Miller-Curry’s friends, takes a moment to compose himself during Anthony’s funeral in Rochester.
Church employees move Anthony’s casket after his funeral. Caskets wrapped in large vinyl decals, typically used for vehicles, have become a popular way for people in Rochester to honor a lost loved one.
Titiana Bogar-Curry, in orange, is surrounded by friends and family during the interment of her second son, at Riverside Cemetery. She is flanked by her three daughters, Ly’Naisha Curry, Omariana Curry, and Estrellita Bogar.
Estrellita Bogar lays flowers on the casket of her brother Anthony.
Pablo Diaz, a friend of Anthony’s, sits at his casket following his interment. A few days before Anthony was shot and killed, Pablo, a rap music artist, had written a song with the lyrics, “I know Ly’Saun looking down on me right now / I am hoping I am making you proud / I told your brother I got him / When I make it, he going to stay around.” Diaz said he wished he could have shown Anthony the song he had written.
From left, Albert Faling, Isaiah Torres, and Bianca Baez, close friends of Anthony, sit at his casket following his interment at Riverside Cemetery in Rochester, on September 2, 2023. “Yes, it is a normalized thing,” said Anthony’s mother, Titiana Bogar-Curry of the youth-involved gun violence in Rochester. “I think these kids are now to the point where they’re expecting one of their friends to die.”
Titiana Bogar-Curry’s fingernails, painted in Anthony and Ly’Saun’s honor. She frequently uses clothing and accessories to celebrate her late sons.
Estrellita Bogar braids her sister’s boyfriend’s hair at home the night before the funeral for her brother, Anthony, near a cardboard cutout of her brother Ly’Saun. Ly’Saun’s sisters had the idea to wrap the cut-out in his graduation robe, to recognize his achievement of graduating from high school just months before he was shot and killed.
Estrellita Bogar holds her brother, Anthony’s, photograph at the repast gathering following his funeral, as his friends film a tribute music video in his honor. The video was made by William Garcia and Pablo Diaz, two of Ly’Saun and Anthony’s high school friends, who are rap music artists. Garcia goes by the performance name “YLS Bam” and Diaz by the name “Esco 4x.”
William Garcia, left, and Lynn Henderson, right, close friends of the Curry brothers, walk along Rochester’s Lake Avenue on September 28, 2024, to visit their gravesites at Riverside Cemetery. Garcia has lost three close friends over the last four years, two being the Curry brothers. The third was Suade McKnight, a 15-year-old boy who was killed during an attempted robbery. “I lost my first brother at 15, and that was Ly’Saun,” Garcia said. “It’s crazy because losing Saun brought me closer to a lot of people. Ly’Saun was always wanting to bring people together. He was, like, the diffuser of issues.”
Garcia’s “LA” tattoo, which represents the first initial of each of the Curry brother’s names. “I’m tired of going on Facebook and social media platforms, going on the news, seeing 17-year-old this, 18-year-old this, 19-year-old this,” Garcia said of young people getting killed. “Nah, man, y’all too young.”
Henderson and Garcia sat at their friend’s gravestones reminiscing for hours, telling stories about the brothers. “Anthony was definitely the life of a party, and Saun was the damn mediator,” said Garcia. “About everything — always had to put it in his two cents — ‘What y’all fighting for? We supposed to be brothers!’”
Titiana Bogar-Curry shops for orange and black flowers with her eldest daughter, Ly’Naisha Curry, for the balloon release for the fourth anniversary of Ly’Saun’s death. As the years pass, their mother celebrates her late sons on their birthdays.
Bogar-Curry passes out orange flowers to family and friends for Ly’Saun’s balloon release on the fourth anniversary of his death.
Ly’Naisha Curry plays with her 2-year-old daughter, Sky’lar Rose A. Jackson, during the balloon release at Riverside Cemetery.
Omariana Curry smiles at the gravestone of her older brother. “We do balloon releases every time, so it’s not like they’re ever forgotten,” she said.
“Say ‘hello’ to your uncle, Sky,” said Ly’Naisha Curry, as she introduced her 2-year-old daughter to her brother. Her daughter kissed a photograph set into her uncle’s gray marble headstone.
Titiana Bogar-Curry has a quiet moment to herself at the gravestone of her late son, Ly’Saun. “I don’t want my kids to be a statistic,” she said. “My boys are not statistics.”
Vincent Alban
Vincent Alban is an independent photojournalist currently based in Chicago. He is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology. He began photographing the effects of gun violence in Rochester in 2021, the year the city broke its single-year homicide record. He now covers a wide range of topics across the Midwest.