His mother pictured him in a lot of ways.
Glenn Taylor, 16
Courtesy of Denver Police Department
Playing violin. Going to college. Practicing medicine or law.
But Josie Davis didn’t imagine her 16-year-old son Glenn Taylor lying on a street bleeding to death.
The Manuel High School junior was taking college level classes and getting good grades.
He was enrolled in Metropolitan State College of Denver’s Upward Bound program. The program for low-income kids required him to attend classes after school twice a week and attend summer school.
He took challenging classes: zoology, geometry, history and American literature.
Taylor was a well-rounded youth.
He played guitar, piano, viola. He was a member of the school’s wrestling team and was active in Junior ROTC. He loved to play football.
Although Taylor didn’t know exactly what profession he would persue he was certain college was in his future.
“He showed so much promise,” educator Charles Maldonado told former Denver Post reporter Marilyn Robinson. “I thought I had a young attorney here.”
Sometimes he spoke of getting a law degree so he could focus on issues affecting African-Americans. He’d get into lengthy conversations with friends about the problems posed by gangs and drugs.
That night, Sept. 27, 1994 – just after midnight – Taylor was standing outside his home at East 25th Avenue and Race Street west of City Park Golf Course with his 14-year-old sister and a neighbor. They were chatting.
Then someone drove down the street in a large, beige-colorado older model car.
According to one media account, the same car had been driven through the neighborhood about a minute earlier. When it returned to the neighborhood it had its headlights out.
Gang signs were flashed. It didn’t matter apparently that Taylor, his sister and friend had never been involved in gangs in any way.