Eddie Dermaus Thomas

Eddie Dermaus Thomas, a 19-year-old Black man from St. Louis, Missouri, is remembered in online records as a young life lost to the city’s long-running cycle of gun violence. What can be pieced together publicly is spare, the kind of thin outline that so many families are left holding: a name, an age, a hometown, and the lingering sense that whatever happened unfolded quickly and left behind more questions than answers.

The clearest public backdrop is the place itself. North St. Louis n ...