From left to right, Milo Pullie, 3, Miranda Pullie, 7, Betty Boujee Boo, dog, Tinka, 55, Wendell Pullie, 5, and True Pullie, 8, all pose for a portrait in their home on April 20, 2022. "I love my family," says Tinka. "Family to me, is like we all need to be grouped up together. Like, I just want us all to be in one big house, one big mansion, you know? That's what family would be for me. But unfortunately, I have kids that wants to live their own life. My grandkids is now growing up teenagers, parents, they're gonna have to live their own life."
Tinka shows a tattoo of the five oldest of her grandchildren's nicknames. "Cry Baby" was her nickname for her late grandchild, Rayquan Jones, who was shot and killed on Maryland St., in Rochester, N.Y., on May 5, 2019.
Tinka gets her grandson Wendell Pullie, 5, ready for school on the morning of April 25, 2022, in Fairport, N.Y. Wendell only goes to school until 11 a.m. due to behavioral issues. "I'm doing my daughters job. She's supposed to wake up and do this every morning," says Tinka, "But she's not ready yet."
Tinka helps Milo get dead skin off of his lip on the afternoon of April 20, 2022.
True, in pink, and Miranda, front, race with neighborhood kids near the playground at their apartment complex on April 25, 2022.
Tinka sits on her bed in her room at Pines and Perinton apartment complex in Fairport, N.Y., on the afternoon of April 25, 2022. Pines and Perinton has had numerous allegations citing uninhabitable conditions. In January, 2022, a fire burnt down 18 apartments and displaced 65 people. Tinka has been trying to get a larger apartment for all the kids so they don't all have to sleep in the same room, but she is finding it hard to find a place in the complex that is habitable.
Milo traces water droplets on the outside of the car window while Tinka drives the kids to Little Caesars to get dinner on April 25, 2022.
Tinka embraces Milo in her room on April 25, 2022.
Wendell and Milo play outside at the playground near their apartment complex on April 25, 2022. Tinka does not get to play outside with the kids much as she has been disabled since 2012 and just recently underwent a hip replacement. "I’ve been tryna heal and raise grandchildren to the best of my ability," says Tinka. "So that they can have a better life that they should be having with their mom."
A billboard is shown on the corner of St. Paul St., and Upper Falls Blvd., in Rochester N.Y., honoring Rayquan. "How we got through this? We haven't gotten through it yet," says Tinka regarding the loss of her grandson. "We're still working on it. We're still trying. And the good thing is...the younger kids, they really don't know what happened...my middle grandson, and my oldest grandchild, they actually saw him. They actually saw his face, the shot wound in his face."
Miranda and Wendell look outside the window of the school-bus on the morning of April 26, 2022. The three older kids all go to Fairport Elementary school while Milo, the youngest, still goes to daycare.
Tinka embraces Wendell in their room on April 20, 2022. In the next room a poster is shown of Rayquan's rap name "Turbo". Rayquan was an aspiring rapper and posted multiple hit songs on youtube such as his song “HOUR BY HOUR” before his passing. "My grandchildren. That's my biggest joy," Tinka reflects. "And making sure that they are - they have the life that their parents didn't have, you know?"
Tinka Range had just returned home after dropping off her grandson, Rayquan Jones, at his home thirty minutes prior on May 5, 2019, in Rochester, N.Y. She still had her keys in her apartment door when she got the call that Rayquan had been shot and killed. “My daughter called me screaming and screaming saying ‘Rayquan was shot!’,” says Tinka. “And I was like ‘I just dropped him off! It ain’t even been thirty minutes so how you mean he was shot?’ He’s dead. It was devastating. Like somebody put a hole in my heart.”
Tinka, 55, of Fairport, N.Y., is a grandmother to 10 children. Rayquan’s mother, who is Tinka’s daughter, was unable to care for his four other siblings after his death. Tinka stepped up to do so. Rayquan was only 18 at the time of his murder and was a victim of one of the 157 shootings that year in Rochester. Since then the number has only multiplied, in 2021 there were 349 shootings.
In 2006, Tinka’s only son, BranChaunn Range was arrested on a manslaughter charge and sentenced to 15 years in prison. BranChaunn had been driving around with friends when he started to get an “off feeling.” He had his hand on his gun when it misfired as he was trying to put it away.
"Murder rate has always been crazy,” says BranChaunn as he reflects on the gun violence he sees in Rochester. The City of Rochester has consistently had the highest crime rate in the area with a rate of 406 crimes per 10,000 in 2020. As a result of this, families such as the Ranges, are left torn apart and on their own to deal with the damages.
