Not every 20-year-old wants to open up a business with their grandmother, but Zakiyy Yasir Allford wasn’t just anyone.
“I cook, my mother could cook, my grandmother could cook,” Zakiyy’s grandmother, Sonya Dixon, listed off. “We come from a long line of cooks.”
Zakiyy inherited the family talent and was putting his life together, dreaming up plans with his grandmother to go into business together.
“He wanted to go to culinary school because he loved to cook,” Sonya said. “The plan was that he would go to school, he would get his license and certifications and stuff like that, and we would open up a business.”
The family business would never come to fruition. Zakiyy Allford, 20, was murdered on June 19, 2017 outside his father’s home in West Philadelphia. Zakiyy, who had recently moved to this new block with his father, was shot 15 times while sitting in a chair on the porch of the home.
“To this day I just don’t know the truth, the reason why this happened, if there was a reason,” Sonya said through tears. “He didn’t deserve that, no one deserves to be taken like that.”
Zakiyy was “a real kind soul” who made friends easily, his grandmother said. While he made some missteps, he was learning and growing from them — and truly trying to make his life better. He graduated high school and was about to complete a workforce development program called Strive Forward.
“You know, Zakiyy may have at some point in life, took the wrong turn, but he got himself together,” Sonya said. “The different programs he was into, they helped him. Everyone, all his counselors and teachers, they all spoke so highly of him, how respectful he was. He wasn’t a troublemaker at all.”
Zakiyy loved riding bikes and motorcycles, eating his grandmother’s signature seafood salad and spending time with friends and family.
Before he was murdered, he was making plans to leave Philadelphia and move to Harrisburg to live with his mother.
No arrests have been made in connection with Zakiyy’s murder.
Date: 2017-06-19
Location: 20 N Yewdall St, Philadelphia, PA
News coverage:
