A former MMA fighter and longtime anti-gun violence advocate allegedly shot and killed a man in the head at a child’s pool party in possible retaliation for his son’s murder just a year ago.
Lumumba Sayers Sr., 46, is accused of walking up and shooting the man in the head at close range in Commerce, Colorado on Aug. 10., an arrest affidavit obtained by 9News said.
Sayers Sr. was charged with first-degree murder and felony menacing.
The victim, identified as 28-year-old Malcolm Watson, was hosting the party for his 5-year-old son.
The shooting is believed to be possible retaliation for last year’s shooting of Lumumba Sayers Jr. at 28th and Welton streets in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood, the outlet added.
Sayers Jr., 23, a father of a two-month-old son, was among the two people fatally shot at around 3:50 a.m. on Aug. 19, 2023.
“Witnesses had stated the (shooter’s son) had been murdered about a year ago by a friend of the deceased (…) and this murder was probably in retaliation or revenge,” the affidavit said of the “possible motive.”
Watson was shot three times and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Watson’s sister claimed her brother was innocent and remembered him as someone who wanted to be a great father and protect his sisters before blasting the shooter’s motives.
“How is it a revenge killing if my brother isn’t the one who had anything to do with it?” Watson’s sister told KUSA.
Watson was believed to have been connected to Tyrell Braxton, the man arrested and charged in Sayers Jr.’s murder, but the affidavit did not detail their relationship, according to the outlet.
Braxton, 24, was arrested and charged with murder a month after the 2023 shooting but the case was later dismissed.
Colorado law seals case records when they are dismissed, but Braxton is still facing a federal charge of illegal possession of ammunition, ABC 7 Denver reported.
Sayers Sr. founded the Heavy Hands Heavy Hearts boxing gym in Aurora.
The community leader also operates the “Gloves Up Guns Down: Get Your Heads Up in the Hood movement,” a foundation his son founded aimed at deterring young people away from violence through structured training and a sense of belonging.
Sayers’ son led programs out of his father’s gym that got kids off the street.
Following Sayer Jr.’s death, the grieving father cried out that his son was killed in the same area that he worked to protect and make better.
“He was stopping a lot of the violence here in the community,” Sayers Sr. previously told KMGH-TV. “Putting on boxing matches and stuff and showing these kids that there’s a different way.”
“This coward shot my son. The community that we protect, you know, we try to provide for, the community that he tried to help guide in a different direction that he grew up in, they killed my son,” he added.
Another leader in Sayers’ community said the father was “in a dark place” after Sayers Jr.’s death.
“When a person goes through something like this, they need ongoing support the grief process, the mourning does not go away,” said Topazz McBride, the owner of the Aurora resource center Rediscovery Through Wellness told the outlet. “People have their own lives, and so people begin to move back to their own sense of normalcy, which didn’t necessarily happen with Lumumba.”
“He was so close to his son, he grieved in a different way because of how he’s been available to community and to other families who’ve lost children to gun violence,” McBride added.
Sayers Sr. is being held in Adams County Detention Facility on a $1 million bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 15.
