That much was assured after 24-year-old William Tolliver and his friend, Marquise Tolbert, allegedly ignited a shootout in downtown Seattle two weeks ago that killed a woman and wounded seven others, including a 9-year-old boy. (After being arrested in Las Vegas, both William and Marquise face charges of first-degree murder and six counts of assault in the first degree.)

Your heart breaks for the eight people and their families whose lives will never be the same. It shatters when you know the person who helped cause their pain.

William is a cousin of my youngest brother, whom my parents adopted when I was in high school.

I hadn’t seen William since he was a teenager, over five years ago. His visits to my parents’ home in those early days were marked by a foreboding sadness. My immediate family worried about him, a fear borne of William’s constant exposure to drugs, gangs, violence and petty robberies. As a teenager from a troubled home, he seemed at times to be raising himself.

The scant invocations he heard of the consequences of his chosen path were no match for the bludgeoning by his chaotic environment.