4: Getting In And Getting Out

February 16, 2023·33 min·3 clips

A seven-year-old girl is dead after being shot six times at a McDonald's drive-thru, and the blame turns to her father.

A child wanted McDonald's. Jonte picked up his seven-year-old daughter, Jaslyn, from her aunt's house, and she was already talking through plans for her brother's birthday. Then the drive-thru became a crime scene. News coverage quickly treated Jonte as the likely target, and public anger landed on one cold idea: he should have known better. The episode does not let that blame stay neat. It follows a father trying to spend normal time with his daughter while still carrying the parts of his old life that had not let go. Jaslyn, called Pinky, comes through in memory as bright and bossy in the best way. Jonte describes her as demanding, in control, and finally able to claim more of his time because he was no longer moving in and out of jail. That closeness makes the loss even harder to talk around. The episode does not separate his grief from his past, but it also does not flatten him into that past. Jonte was stepping back from the gang. By the account here, he was not fully out, and his music still kept him visible in a public rivalry. Drill is part of the story: its rise, its violent imagery, and the way Jonte's videos mocked rivals while giving old conflicts a new stage. Jonte regrets that now. He says his songs and associations added fuel, even when he was no longer living every part of the street identity he performed. The target stayed on him. On the day he took Jaslyn to McDonald's, he says he was thinking like a father, not like someone under threat. That gap is where the episode hurts most: changing direction is one thing. Getting the world to believe it is another.

As heard by us

A child's death, a father's past, and the blame that follows.

A seven-year-old girl's death at a McDonald's drive-thru lands as a story about grief, blame, and a father who never seemed fully separated from his past.

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Why you'd press play

You want a hard look at blame after a 7-year-old girl is killed in a McDonald's drive-thru shooting in Lawndale.

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