Tyler M. Taffe was a 12-year-old Black boy known for a bubbly personality and a smile that could light up a room. A bright and beloved seventh-grade student at Millwood Arts Academy in Oklahoma, Tyler played on the middle school football team and was remembered by friends and teachers as a happy kid who was loved by many. His friends on and off the field were left heartbroken by his sudden death, struggling to comprehend the loss of their vibrant friend.
In the pre-dawn hours of
September 28, 2024, a 911 call brought emergency responders to a home on Abeline Avenue in Edmond, Oklahoma. The frantic caller, later identified as Tyler’s mother, Kershena Cotton, told a dispatcher her son had been shot. Officers arrived around 2:50 a.m. and found Tyler in a bedroom with a gunshot wound. They performed CPR until medical help arrived, but the boy was pronounced dead at the scene. A purple and silver Taurus 9mm pistol was found in the room.
The subsequent investigation by the Edmond Police Department pieced together the events that led to the tragedy. The gun belonged to Cotton, who had taken her 18-year-old son, Logan Walker, and others to a gun range on September 10. Cotton told investigators she believed no ammunition was brought back to the house and that she had instructed Walker to lock the firearm in her safe. However, Walker later admitted to police that he had secretly kept ammunition from the range, loaded a magazine when he got home, and left the loaded pistol on his bedside table for the weeks leading up to the shooting.
Initially, police reports indicated that Tyler had found the unsecured handgun and accidentally shot himself. His mother, Kershena Cotton, and his brother, Logan Walker, were both charged with felony child neglect for failing to secure the firearm in a home with a child. The devastating incident prompted the Millwood Public Schools superintendent to call the shooting a "gun accident" and led the district to promote gun safety awareness, even offering to provide gun locks to parents.
The full truth of what happened that morning did not emerge until later in court. In September 2026, Kershena Cotton and Logan Walker both pleaded guilty to charges related to Tyler's death. During the proceedings, Logan Walker admitted that he was the one who had accidentally shot his younger brother. He explained in court that he had been moving clothes off a bed where Tyler was lying and did not realize the loaded gun was underneath the pile. The firearm discharged, fatally wounding the 12-year-old. The case was closed with the guilty pleas.
