2 strangers become family after a Philly youth is slain

TANISHA Pratt-Thomas is a Kingsessing mother who works in a hospital call center. Jacqueline Bailey-Davis is a Philadelphia police captain tasked with getting the 6,300-officer department to implement dozens of federally recommended reforms.

They had no reason to know one another.

But last month, a few days after Pratt-Thomas' son, 15-year-old Tyhir Barnes, was shot dead after watching a Southwest Philadelphia basketball game, Bailey-Davis and another officer showed up at Pratt-Thomas' rowhouse - unannounced - with a picture frame and mugs.

Small gifts, said the captain, who had no connection to Barnes' murder investigation but still felt moved to comfort a grieving mother who, at a vigil for her son the night after the shooting, implored residents and the media to talk to police.

A few weeks later, she presented another gift: a two-day getaway to Sahara Sam's Oasis, a water park in West Berlin, N.J. Bailey-Davis paid for a hotel for Pratt-Thomas, her husband, and two daughters, and the park donated VIP passes.

"I would consider Tanisha and the family friends," Bailey-Davis said last week, explaining how the unlikely relationship formed amid tragedy.

"Not a new friend," said Pratt-Thomas. "They will forever be my family."

Ask police officers why they signed up for the job and you'll hear a variety of refrains: the action, a desire for justice, the work is in their blood.

But almost every officer - from foot-patrol rookies to bosses with stars on their collars - will tell you their primary motivation is to help people.

Bailey-Davis, 46, tries to embody that spirit.

Raised in a South Philadelphia housing project, she credits her parents and a series of mentors with pushing her toward college and, ultimately, her career in law enforcement. She recently established - and personally funded - a $50,000 scholarship at Lincoln University for aspiring criminal-justice students. And she views policing as an opportunity to pay her own perceived debts forward, having similarly helped a handful of families in the past.

"This is what I do," said Bailey-Davis, quick-spoken and endlessly upbeat. "What if [my mentors] had minded their business? Where would I be? . . . I remind myself of that all the time."

Pratt-Thomas, 41, is overwhelmingly grateful for her new friend but acknowledges that the grief of losing her son is tough to overcome.

For a week after he was gunned down by what police called a rival basketball team near Cobbs Creek Park, she slept on the first floor of her home so that she wouldn't have to walk past his bedroom.

She still says "hi" to Barnes when she drives past the cemetery on the way to the store.

And when Barnes' friends made a music video to honor him, Pratt-Thomas was so moved, she drove to his grave to cry.

"He didn't deserve it," she said in her living room last week, tears pooling in her eyes. "That's just what hurts. He's not here anymore and it's over nothing."

Her last memory of Barnes is seeing his body in the morgue.

Two suspects - Joshua Richardson, 16, and Kywayne Hill, 18 - have been charged in the shooting, which also injured two of Barnes' teammates. Police said the incident resulted from a beef over a hoops contest a few days earlier that Barnes' team won.

Pratt-Thomas still has trouble understanding how an argument among teenagers could morph into such indiscriminate violence.

"I just want to know why," she said. "I ask myself all the time: What's the reason?"

Bailey-Davis knew when providing a getaway that no amount of escape could answer that question. But still, Pratt-Thomas was thankful for the reprieve.

Sitting poolside at the water park last week, she daydreamed about how Barnes would have loved such a trip, splashing and swimming with his family a few miles and a world away from Southwest Philadelphia.

Pratt-Thomas called Bailey-Davis while she was there, thanking her and saying that the girls were having fun.

Then she returned to her family, comforted by the support of someone she calls her newfound sister, and wistful that they all could have been spending another summer day with Barnes.

cpalmer@phillynews.com

215-854-2817 @cs_palmer