GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Everywhere he goes, Jermar Sterling carries with a laminated copy of a Grand Rapids Press article about his crime.
It took 20 years to get to this point, the same age Jermar was when he got his prison sentence. Jermar was part of a robbery that turned into a murder in 2003.
A convicted felon, Jermar is done paying his debt to society as of February 10, 2023.
Jermar didn’t get a life sentence. But he knows for life, his past will follow him.
That’s why he says it’s so important he paints a new picture for his future, and precisely why he carries that copy of his old story with him.
Feb. 10, 2023, his next chapter begins. It's a chapter that places a proverbial red scarlet letter on his back: convicted felon. Still, Jermar carries on.
Things have changed. In 2021, he came back home to find a community party store, Miss Tracy’s, had changed locations. White people are now jogging in the predominately Black community he left two decades prior.
After getting released on parole in February 2021, he first began working with Cure Violence, helping mentor young people he says he understands in a way many people can’t.
“A lot of my friends will call me — who I grew up in prison with — they’ll call me. 'Hey, can you talk to my nephew?' 'Can you talk to my son?'” Sterling said.
Now, Jermar carries on his work with Community Kids as Youth Coordinator.
Walking through his childhood neighborhood, Jermar recalls the time when he was around 10 years old when bullets flew through the family room around Christmastime.
He points to the window where it happened, mentioning that’s where they kept the tree. The home is in that same neighborhood surrounding Miss Tracy’s.
“The Simpsons had just started,” Sterling said. “All we could do was hit the ground.”
Still, 20 years later, that intersection of MLK Street and Eastern Avenue — formerly Franklin and Eastern— has one of the highest rates of violent crime in Grand Rapids.
Jermar wants to be part of changing all of that.
He says the adults behind shooting knew what they were doing. They just didn’t care.
“Before 6 o’clock, before sundown, we couldn’t play in the front yard. There were too many deaths in the 1990s,” Sterling said.
Sterling was angry.
“I felt misunderstood. So I became a fighter. I’d fight all the time,” Sterling said.
The first time Jermar ran away, he was 15. He says he had a mom who loved him. She wrote him prayer letters in prison. Their last photo together brings a tear to Jermar's eye.
He never got to say goodbye. His mom passed away three months before he got out on parole. But her words and prayers got Jermar through.
But Friday, Feb. 10, 2023, Jermar got a fresh start.
On a single sheet of paper, with his name spelled wrong — a sentiment that for Jermar only proves he's done everything right — he got off parole.
His dad hugged him, the kind of hug you give someone after they earn something they've been working towards for years. Neither father nor son wanted to let go.
The good news is with Jermar's newfound freedom, more hugs are on the way.
