Grieving mother ‘lost part of her heart’ when son was fatally shot

Kiana McCune said Thursday the day she heard gunshots outside the parking lot of the Tan Tara Apartments she could hardly breathe because she knew her “whole world just ended.”

Her 16-year-old son, Michael Alexander McCune, had just left the apartment early to meet his “tracker” – a liaison who monitors teens for juvenile court – outside, she said in a victim impact statement. As he left, he told her “I’m good” -- his last words to her.

Everything happened so fast. About five minutes later, she heard gunshots.

“They were so close,” the mother said. “I grabbed my 3-year-old off the couch and crawled to the kitchen. My heart instantly dropped, as I started crawling to the window because the defendants (Dante Irvin, being adjudicated in juvenile court Thursday and the others charged) were still shooting.”

She told her boyfriend, “My baby is out there.” She got to the window and saw people running across the parking lot, to another apartment building. The mother grabbed her phone and started calling her son over and over again.

That day keeps playing over and over in her mind.

“I will never forget Feb. 18,” Kiana McCune, tearing up, told the judge with members of her family and friends surrounding her in the small, packed Linn County Juvenile Court courtroom. “On that day I lost a part of my heart, and honestly, I died that day with my son.”

The mother said 15-year-old Dante Irvin ambushed and targeted her son in such a “hateful, manic manner with no remorse for my son, my family or the community. He is a menace and shouldn’t even have a chance to be around regular humans again.”

Irvin, during the mother’s statement, just leaned his head forward and looked down while his mother and about 17 other family and friends sat behind him, pressed together in the limited space. He declined to make a statement during the hearing in Linn County Juvenile Court.

Irvin, a high school sophomore, pleaded in June to first-degree murder as a youthful offender. He will remain under the jurisdiction of juvenile court until he turns 18.

He returned to juvenile court Thursday because a judge had to decide whether to send him to the Boys State Training School in Eldora or another juvenile facility out of state because Iowa only has one such facility.

Sixth Judicial Associate District Judge Russell Keast asked Irvin’s attorney, Mike Lahammer, for his recommendation.

Lahammer asked that Irvin be ordered to the state training school and let the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services find him a reasonable placement.

Keast said he is aware of DHS Director Kelly Garcia’s letter to Irvin’s juvenile court officer, asking the court not to place the teen at the training school.

Garcia said in the letter obtained by the Gazette in June that doing so “would put his life and the lives of other students and STS (state training school) staff at risk of serious harm.”

Garcia said McCune, a former student at the school, “identified” with a Cedar Rapids area gang, “The Money Boyz.” Irvin, she wrote, has a known affiliation with a “rival gang, who are suspected to be responsible” for McCune’s fatal shooting.

Garcia, in the letter, said if Irvin was sent to the school, she would request he immediately be removed after placement.

Keast said he would order Irvin to the state training school or an “equivalent facility.” He also would ask that Irvin be moved out of juvenile detention as soon as possible. He also set a detention hearing in 30 days to ensure Irvin has been moved to a facility by then or he finds that DHS is making progress on a placement.

Basically, it’s up to DHS to find a suitable placement for Irvin – either the training school or another outside of Iowa.

Irvin, convicted as a youthful offender, will return to district – adult – court when he turns 18 and a judge will decide whether to sentence him to life with the possibility of parole, a lesser prison term or probation, or release him.

More victim statements

Kiana McCune, during her statement, also told the judge that she didn’t think two years in a juvenile facility was long enough for rehabilitation of killing her son. The teen planned and did this at 15, so there’s no way to know what he will do when he gets older, she said.

“How many families have to lose their child over gun violence? How many sisters and brothers live on without the person they grew up with?” the mother said. “I need and this community needs to know that this is not OK and won’t be tolerated.”

Kiana McCune also said she wanted the judge to know who Michael was. He was “handsome, respectful, friendly, loving, sweet and playful.” He was great at math and would even sometimes help her. He enjoyed playing basketball, football and video games.

He would have been a senior this year and was ready to learn a trade as a career. Michael wanted “lots of kids and to be a family man.” But all those things were taken away “in a blink of an eye.”

She also read a statement for her other son, Keonte McCune, because he wasn’t able to read it.

Keonte said he ran to do a quick errand that day, not knowing that it would be the last time he would see his brother alive. He received a call from his mother, but there was just silence. He called back, and this time she said, “They are shooting, come home.” He rushed home and saw a crowd outside and an ambulance.

He ran down to their apartment and saw his mother “bawling.” He asked where his brother was, and they said, “he is gone.”

“Michael was the sweetest, most talented person I know,” Keonte said. “Just being around him could put a smile on your face. He was always there for you, if you needed him.”

Irvin took his brother’s life “without a care in the world. Moving forward, I am glad I have my mom because we will be his voice.”

Kiana McCune broke down and started crying after reading her son’s statement.

After the hearing, Irvin’s family told him they loved him as they left the courtroom.

Irvin and three others teens – Tramontez Lockett, 17, of Cedar Rapids, Baynon “BJ” Berry, 16, of Marion, and Devin Gardner, 16, of Maquoketa, planned a “targeted” fatal attack on McCune on Feb. 18 over past conflicts stemming from their rival gang affiliations and the time some of them spent together at the training school, according to criminal complaints.

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