The easy choice was revenge.
Tina Crawford lost her only son Ira Hopkins in 2014 when gunshots struck him in a senseless robbery. He was 35. And it happened on his birthday.
For a while, Crawford was overwhelmed with rage and craving retribution. An eye for an eye, after all.
But by the time the two men responsible for her son’s murder were sentenced in a Delaware courtroom, Crawford had one eye on forgiveness.
She told the judge at the hearing, “I have forgiven the people that have done this to our family because my God tells me to, but what they did was wrong and it was hateful, and they must pay with whatever you decide.”
An 18-year-old who was involved in the robbery, but did not fire the fatal shots, Jy’Aire Smith-Pennick, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the crime.
Crawford shared what happened next in a recent interview with CNN. After the verdict, she discovered that she was acquainted with one of Smith-Pennick’s aunts. She met another one of his aunts too—and all three women stayed in touch.
Soon, Crawford found herself going far beyond the easy choice of revenge and fully embracing mercy. She invited Jy’Aire to write her a letter and eventually, that offer became a telephone call.
One day the phone rang and she learned a few details of Jy’Aire’s life—and that call was followed by numerous other conversations that illuminated the situation.
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Jy’Aire was homeless for large stretches of his youth, bouncing between different houses and different schools. Stability was hard to find and became even more elusive when his mother died when he was 14, his father at 17, and stepmother at 18.
He turned to the streets, started selling heroin and got talked into robbing a stranger, Ira Hopkins, late one July night right outside Crawford’s apartment.
Throughout his long years in prison, Mrs. Crawford became one of the people helping him get through it all, giving him encouragement by phone once a month.
She urged Jy’Aire to better himself and get an education while in prison. He turned that advice into a high school diploma—then an associate’s degree. Another course certified him as a peer specialist who counseled some of his fellow inmates and even talked a few out of suicide.
He wrote an apology letter to Ira that was published on the internet. Indeed, a renaissance was underway. A soul lost to the streets had made an abrupt turn, to discover a whole new path back to life.
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Seven years after he was sentenced, Jy’Aire had a chance to get out. The Delaware Board of Pardons met in October 2024 to consider his case. Dozens of people showed up to support his parole. One of them who spoke on his behalf was Tina Crawford.
“That man hurt me,” Crawford said, according to the article from CNN. ”He took something from me…I lost a son…”
“But in the process, I gained one.”
The Board of Pardons voted unanimously to commute Jy’Aire’s sentence. In a few months, he would be a free man.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Jy’Aire is working with Tina on a non-profit called the IRA Foundation. The organization will teach at-risk kids some marketable skills like bricklaying, carpentry, music, and photography. They’ll carry on Ira’s memory. And perhaps they will protect a few from the pitfalls that claimed Jy’Aire.
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Completing an unlikely circle, both of them will be working together to keep Ira’s name alive—thankful that they found each other.
The CNN article summarized it best: “Jy’Aire says he will protect Tina until the breath leaves his body. The son without a mother, watching over the mother without a son.”
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