One bullet: 6-year-old shot in Wilmington last year now paralyzed, brain-damaged, but home

Jashown Banner was deep in conversation with his mom as he sat behind her while she  drove her Ford Explorer through the east side of Wilmington.

About what, Shaylynn Banner-Hackett can't remember now. It was a sunny June 5, 2017, with lots of people outside on the sidewalks and street.

She paused longer than normal at a stop sign, to let a man walk by. As he crossed the driver-side headlight, a sedan suddenly pulled up from the left, stopping in front of her car and blocking it. 

Gunshots erupted. Banner-Hackett felt glass cut her left arm. Then silence. Jashown was no longer talking.

She glanced back over her right shoulder to check on her 6-year-old son and his sister, Jordan, then 2, who was sitting next to him. Jashown's head was rolled back with his eyes open. 

"It was then I saw the blood," Banner-Hackett said. "He fell on his sister's lap, and she pushed him and said, 'Get up butt-butt," Jordan's pet name for her brother. 

Jashown died in the car, then in the ambulance, and then in the hospital that day, but he was resuscitated each time.

The shooting outraged the city. The kindergartener who loved playing Nerf guns and video games was one of 197 victims struck by gunfire last year. The community held a prayer circle on the block where Jashown was shot. 

Now, a year after defying doctors' initial prognosis that he was brain dead, paralyzed and would not recover, Jashown is finally home. He lives in a hospital bed in the family's living room. His huge medical expenses are largely covered by Medicaid, but the family of seven is mostly homebound without a vehicle to transport him, and his mom is worn out from caring for him.

"I'd never thought my son and I would be a victim of gun violence," said Banner-Hackett. "Never a day in my life, until the day it happened."

Michael D. Pritchett, 33, was charged with attempted murder for shooting Jashown. In a bundled indictment released last week, Pritchett and seven others also were indicted for first-degree attempted murder for trying to kill the pedestrian who walked in front of Banner-Hackett's car. In addition, Pritchett and 40 others are charged with various counts of money laundering, drug activity, racketeering and more. Prosecutors would not comment on the shooting case or the bundled indictments.

Banner-Hackett doubts the shooter even feels guilty, but she believes in karma and thinks those involved will suffer for what they have inflicted on others.

The only question she has for them is why. Why stop then? Why shoot then? Why choose violence to start with?

'They kept counting him out'

The family had been heading to the home of Jashown's father, Joshua Potts, to drop the boy off in the 700 block of E. Sixth St. 

"His dad suddenly gets a phone call that his son's been shot, instead of getting a phone call he was outside," Banner-Hackett said. 

As she watched her spontaneous, energetic momma's boy slump into his sister's lap, her gut instinct was revenge.

"You want to know what my mind frame was? To chase them down and ram their car. I'm not going to lie," Banner-Hackett said. "But I had my son, and he needed my help."

A stray bullet had pierced Banner's upper lip and lodged in his vertebrae. A Wilmington police officer performed CPR on Jashown in the back seat of the car, and he was taken to Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital for Children, while Banner-Hackett was sent to St. Francis.

She left after an hour to get to her son. 

The 6-year-old remained in a coma for five days. Banner-Hackett, her sister, her husband and her four other children, now ages 17 to 3, stayed the entire time, sleeping in chairs, on the floor and in their cars when they could.

For five months, doctors repeatedly advised his mother to pull the plug, Banner-Hackett said. 

"They kept counting him out," she said.

Pointing around the living room last week, she said, "They told me if I wanted my son, this is the outcome. The feeding tube and the trach, and all of this. That's fine with me, because I am bringing my son home."

Banner-Hackett carefully watched hospital monitors for signs of hope. When she finally saw the purple dot that meant he was taking a breath of his own, a wave of relief and joy washed over her.

Jashown improved enough that five months after he was shot, he could be moved to a Delaware Developmental Disabilities Council nursing home. That was the hardest time for Banner-Hackett, she said, because she was separated from Jashown after spending every night in his hospital room.

As the child went through that program, Banner-Hackett took classes to make sure she could take care of him at home. She must keep him breathing, clear his mouth, monitor his heart rate and blood pressure, handle his food bags, and, every two hours, change his diapers and rotate him to prevent bed sores.

After three months in the nursing home and eight months after the shooting, the now 7-year-old finally came back to the family's New Castle home.

That moment was the happiest Banner-Hackett had experienced in a while.

'I still cry' 

Jashown and his medical supplies fill every drawer, corner and wall socket of the living room. Even with a day nurse and night nurse, Jashown's constant care has left Banner-Hackett exhausted mentally, emotionally and physically. Banner-Hackett quit her job as a cleaner when her son was shot, and her full-time job now is watching over Jashown. 

She gave birth Saturday to her third son, Simire. Asked how she will manage the loss of sleep, she said, "I'm used to not getting any sleep."   

"I'm not all there anymore," she said. "I have good days and I have bad days. On those bad days, I still cry. It's hard to go from having a normal kid to this."

The cost of ensuring Jashown can survive at home is about $14,000 a month, Banner-Hackett estimated. Most of the bill is footed by Medicaid, but outlying expenses, such as a wheelchair-accessible van, are left for the family to pay, and they can't afford it. 

Jashown smiles when his family leans over his bed. They talk to him as though nothing has changed. As the sun was setting one day last week, Banner-Hackett reached over to wipe a tear off his cheek and to run her hands through his hair. 

Jashown has made small improvements, like blinking for yes and no, moving his hands, showing off his great smile, which now includes a scarred lip and missing teeth, thanks to the bullet.

Banner-Hackett said these subtle accomplishments keep her going. 

"This one doctor apologized like five times saying he didn't think that Jashown would make it this far," she said. 

Banner-Hackett's faith, her other children and her husband, Paul Hackett, keep her going, even when she "goes to the dark side." 

The stray shot has taken a toll on the rest of the family, too. The eldest of the six children, Briyana Banner, 17, has her own child but also watches out for her siblings.

"I've always helped take care of everything. They expect me to," she said.

Jordan Banner, now 3, remains traumatized by seeing her brother shot.

Banner-Hackett said she re-enacts the scene with dolls, and until recently avoided Jashown's bed full of tubes and wires.

"She did not forget," Banner-Hackett said. "She was scared and used to cry going around him."

Before the shooting the family was usually on the go. They visited beaches, water parks and the zoo, went to movies and had family dinners out.

"We can't go anywhere," Banner-Hackett said. "We don't have transportation to get anywhere. My sister will take the others so they aren't here all the time." 

She knows her son's plight is one more piece of evidence about a world turned brutal, and Banner-Hackett is pessimistic that violence will decline in the city. She thinks so much has happened and it's so ingrained that the city can't turn it around.

"It's very disturbing. We were all innocent bystanders, and I would wish this on nobody's kid," she said. "One bullet did all this damage." 

Contact Josephine Peterson at (302) 324-2856, jhpeterson@delawareonline.com, or Twitter at @jopeterson93.