BY B.G. GREGG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
When Jermaine Lowe left his mother's Mount Auburn home Monday night, he stopped to give her a kiss.
"I always taught him and my other children that when we leave each other to tell each other we love each other and to kiss goodbye, because it might be the last time we see each other," Myrvinia Lowe said. "I just didn't know I was going to have to put it to use so soon."
Less than five hours after the kiss goodbye, Mr. Lowe was dead, shot in the chest and head after a police chase and shootout at the intersection of Vine Street and McMillan Avenue.
Ms. Lowe is left to remember the kiss.
To the outside world -- the world that didn't look at Mr. Lowe through a mother's eyes -- the 21-year-old had a dark side.
In 1992, while still a juvenile, he was sentenced to prison for armed robbery and served time at the Ross Correctional Institution. He was only out a few months last September, living at Volunteers of America, an Over-the-Rhine halfway house, when police picked him up on a drug abuse charge.
At the time of his death, he was wanted on a warrant, accused of robbing Highland Deli in Corryville at gunpoint May 8.
On top of his criminal problems, he had financial trouble. He was recently evicted from a Corryville apartment and was being sought by a rental company because he rented an entertainment center and didn't make payments.
But that Mr. Lowe is not the one his mother chooses to remember. Instead of the prison time, she remembers her son studying for and receiving his GED while he was at Ross.
She doesn't remember him pointing a gun at someone's head to get money; she remembers the beautiful drawings he made, including those on the envelopes he sent home from prison.
She doesn't think about the eviction, she thinks about the 60 straight days he worked at Goodwill Industries before quitting his job in late April.
For every bit of bad others saw in her son, she and her family saw a glimmer of hope.
"He was the most respectful, sweetest kid," she said. "But I understand he was wrong. Anytime you're in a stolen vehicle, you are wrong. I just question some of the procedures."
