Every week between now and the one-year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shootings, Orlando Weekly will profile a person killed on June 12, 2016. This week: Tevin Eugene Crosby
As the New Year was about to begin, Tevin Eugene Crosby was so excited he posted a Facebook status saying, "2016 will be the best year ever."
The 25-year-old from Statesville, North Carolina, had recently moved to Michigan to start a marketing business called Total Entrepreneurs Concepts. He tried to keep his team passionate with inspirational quotes on hard work as well as bowling nights and leadership awards. Shenetra Harris says her brother had traveled back to North Carolina on June 9 as a surprise to spend time with his family and attend her son's and daughter's elementary school graduations. The family then went to Greensboro to celebrate, and Crosby danced and cooked shrimp kebabs for everybody. Harris says her brother liked to cook seafood and Latin American cuisine.
"He was really close to my kids from the day they've been born," she says. "Tevin has always been there and he wouldn't miss a party for nothing, even if he was far away from home."
Crosby then went to Orlando to visit friends. On June 12, he and Richard Aiken went out for a night of fun at the gay nightclub Pulse. During the mass shooting, Aiken and Crosby were trapped in the bathrooms. Aiken made it out alive, but Crosby and 48 other people were killed in the club.
"Happy Birthday to my best friend Tevin-AKA-Meche," Aiken wrote on Facebook on what would have been Crosby's 26th birthday. "This same weekend last year we were in Miami having a blast. I miss you man."
Harris, the oldest of three children, still remembers her brother coming home from school upset that he'd gotten a B. He always loved to excel, whether it was on the honor roll or later in life by going after new business ventures.
"My brother was full of light, full of energy," she says. "He just always went for everything he wanted in life. Tevin was also a really sweet, really loving person who was always there for you just to talk. It still don't seem real."
