To Nyekuoth Jieng, Des Moines doesn’t always feel safe.

It’s been a year since her 14-year-old brother, Yore Jieng, was killed by a stray gunshot while sitting in the passenger seat of a car driven by their sister.

The family has struggled to heal. In a recent interview at their Des Moines home, Nyekuoth Jieng, 22, said it worries her to know that the shooter hasn't been found.

"There's a lot of gun violence out there, and I just wish people would stop, because these kids have so much more to be. They don't need to be losing their lives over anything like this,” Jieng said. “I just wish there was more positivity in this community rather than just violence and negative.”

Yore Jieng's death is one of several homicide cases in Des Moines that remain unsolved. Police have often pinned the lack of answers on uncooperative witnesses — people who police say know what happened but won't come forward.

"It's just crazy to think that there's people like that still in the streets," Nyekuoth Jieng said. She cried as she talked about her younger brother.

The Jiengs' mother, Lory Kuon, said she also hopes police find the person who killed her son. She doesn't want that person to hurt anyone else, she said. She speaks the Sudanese language Nuer and was interviewed through an interpreter.

"It's the same feeling. It still hurts. It still kills me inside, but I can't do anything about it," Kuon said of her son's death. "Every time I'm sleeping, my son comes in my sleep. He comes in my dreams. I can feel his presence."

Yore Jieng, one of his sisters and their younger brother were driving to McDonald's the evening of Oct. 24, 2016. At Keosauqua Way and 12th Street, just north of downtown, a gunshot from outside of the car struck Jieng in his head. His sister drove straight to a hospital, where Jieng held on for nearly a week. He died Oct. 29, 2016.

Jieng did not do anything to provoke the shooting, police said.

"He was a good kid. That boy was gonna make it somewhere," Nyekuoth Jieng said. "He was really gonna be something, and they just took that from him. And that's not fair. They took someone really special from us."

Her brother was involved in church, loved playing basketball and participated in youth programs at Oakridge Neighborhood, the nonprofit housing complex where his family lives.

"He was just that funny kid. Everybody loved him. It's just sad, because that's my little brother," Jieng said.

When Yore Jieng was younger, he dreamed of growing up to become a police officer, his sister said. If officers were at Oakridge Neighborhood, he would follow them around, she said. When he got a little older, he decided he wanted to be a professional basketball player. His favorite team was the Cleveland Cavaliers.

"He had hopes and dreams, and it's like, they just crushed that for him," Jieng said. "Never, ever would I have thought that this would happen to anybody in my family."

Jieng's parents immigrated to Des Moines from Sudan in 1994, the family said. They came to the United States as refugees from violence in their home country. They moved to Oakridge Neighborhood in 2002, shortly before Yore Jieng was born.

Yore Jieng is survived by two older brothers, three older sisters and two younger brothers. All of his siblings live with his mother in Des Moines, while their father works out of state, the family said.

A Des Moines police spokesman said that Jieng's death isn't considered "a cold case," but that the investigation is progressing slowly. Shortly after the shooting, police repeatedly appealed to the public, asking anyone with information on the case to come forward. This included publicly releasing a video that showed a car driving recklessly near the crime scene.

"We strongly believe there was more than one person in the car when that shot was fired," Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said in a recent interview. "We know there's only one person that pulled the trigger. So there are several other people who know what happened and who disgust us in their refusal to come forward and do the right thing and get some justice for this kid and his family."

Parizek said he could not provide any further information about the investigation.

Nyekuoth Jieng said she takes some comfort in her faith that God knows who killed her brother. It also helps that the family has received support from friends, church and their neighborhood, she said.

But the death still hurts her and her family every day.

"I think about it all the time. It's still fresh," Jieng said. "We never experienced anything like this before."

"I feel like someone was just trigger-happy and just — if they knew who they were shooting at, they would not have done that," she said. "They shouldn't have shot anyway. You don't have the right to take anybody's life. But that's what happens."

Anyone who may have information on the unsolved homicide of Yore Jieng can call Des Moines police at 515-283-4811.

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