{"id":99153,"date":"2025-12-24T00:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T00:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/99153\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T00:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T00:49:08","slug":"dart-shooting-victims-family-questions-why-excuse-me-exchange-turned-deadly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/99153\/","title":{"rendered":"DART shooting victim\u2019s family questions why \u2018excuse me\u2019 exchange turned deadly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Victim\u2019s <\/p>\n

DALLAS – A Dallas victim\u2019s grieving family is wondering how an exchange of words led to a deadly confrontation at a Dallas Area Rapid Transit station.<\/p>\n

Deadly DART Shooting \"\" <\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

Erin La\u2019James Graham was shot and killed on Friday night at DART\u2019s 8th and Corinth Station in Oak Cliff.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old was gunned down after a brief verbal exchange with two brothers, including 18-year-old Demetrius Rogers.<\/p>\n

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Rogers told detectives that as he and his brother walked past Graham, they said “excuse me.” Graham replied by saying, “excuse you.”<\/p>\n

The suspect\u2019s brother took offense to the comment. He and Graham then assumed a fighting stance, according to the document.<\/p>\n

Rogers said he became angry and shot Graham in the chest with his Glock 44 handgun.<\/p>\n

Rogers is now in the Dallas County jail charged with murder.<\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

Graham\u2019s family wants to know why that simple exchange escalated into a deadly shooting.<\/p>\n

“He wasn\u2019t even trying to get with you. He was talking to the other dude. It\u2019s two of ya\u2019ll and one of him, and he ain’t got no gun,” said Elijah McKenzie, the victim\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n

His mother, Margurita Everrett, said he was the youngest of her three sons and a very kind-hearted person.<\/p>\n

“My baby\u2019s just gone from here. He took my baby away from me. And I tell people to step in a mother\u2019s shoes and feel what I\u2019m feeling. My baby\u2019s gone. And it\u2019s not really a lot of words to say for the feeling that I have. I just have a broken heart. It\u2019s a piece missing out of it,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The family members said Graham had recently turned his life to faith.<\/p>\n

“He called me. He was so excited. \u2018Mama, I\u2019m getting baptized.\u2019 And I was like oh God, thank you. And I just started praising God for that and he was just so happy,” his mother said.<\/p>\n

The family must now spend the holiday making plans to lay Graham to rest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this story comes from interviews with Erin La\u2019James Graham’s mother and brother, as well as past news coverage.<\/p>\n

Oak Cliff<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Dallas Area Rapid Transit<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS – A Dallas victim\u2019s grieving family is wondering how an exchange of words led to a deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1046,102,581,104,103,2261,223,4896,1827,216,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-99153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-crime-publicsafety","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-county","11":"tag-dallas-headlines","12":"tag-dallas-news","13":"tag-dart","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-oak-cliff","16":"tag-organization","17":"tag-tx","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}