Killing of Le'Zah Lewis during Native Omaha Days leaves huge hole in big family

As usual, Lewis joyfully played the role of the hostess with the most interest in everybody enjoying themselves and each other’s company. She prepared her popular loaded nachos, plus chicken wings and hot dogs. She not only made the food, she dished up a plate for each person in the house.

Once everyone else was fed, Lewis finally dished up two plates for herself, sat down and put her feet up to watch the fight. At five months pregnant, she was eating for two. Her family was happy, so she was, too. The fact that Crawford, a native North Omahan, crushed his opponent, well, that was just salsa on the nachos.

Hours later, Lewis was dead. She was killed early on July 30 when gunmen sprayed bullets into a group of people who were peacefully socializing beside North 24th Street during Native Omaha Days, one of Omaha’s biggest events that is all about the things that Lewis loved — family, friends and the ties that bind. A man who was also in the area, 48-year-old Londell Stubblefield, was shot and seriously injured.

Lewis’ death leaves a huge hole in her big family. And it adds another loss to a surge in gun violence that is plaguing Omaha this summer and that brought tragedy to the joyous Native Omaha Days celebration.

Lewis had four children. Her oldest is 11. Her youngest just turned 1.

Though she was only 30 years old, her nurturing role extended well beyond her own children to aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and the extended family of her family.

Lewis, a 2011 graduate of Burke High School, worked as a nurse.

“I was a nurse,” said Anjonette McLucas, her mother. “She just wanted to be like her mother.”

A nursing career also fit her personality and motivation, a big group of Lewis’ family said in an interview last week.

“She took care of everybody else,” said Ceah Midder, sister of Le’Zah’s fiance, Raj.

“She was everybody’s mama,” Raj Midder said.

“By nature,” another relative pitched in.

That ranged from giving people rides, to loaning her car, to making people feel loved and welcome, to sharing laughs and lifting spirits, to throwing birthday parties for everybody — kids and grown-ups — and to giving advice, lots of advice.

Andrea Midder, Raj’s mother who is also a nurse, described how Lewis helped her get her credit straightened out so she could buy a new car. That brought nods of acknowledgment from around the room.

“She was always on everybody about their credit,” said Anuoluwa Sodinde, a young relative, laughing with the others. “You don’t need to do it this way, make sure you do it this way.”

Lewis even told her family to eat their vegetables.

As the eldest of six, she looked after her younger siblings, taking on the role of a second mother to them, her mother said. That nurturing extended beyond immediate relatives to everyone who came into the extended family, Sodinde said.

People appreciated Lewis, McLucas said, and didn’t really take offense at the talking-tos from her.

“That’s because she was right,” McLucas said. “It’s like when your mother is talking to you, you know she’s right.”

“She was a pillar for sure,” said Chyann Midder, another young relative.

When it came to family gatherings, Lewis made sure they were done right, planning every detail from the entertainment to the decorations, and the food. If people were lucky, she made her special creamy cucumber salad.

Her three boys all had their birthday parties recently. Just a couple weeks ago, Lewis threw a swimming party for the extended family and friends at Miller Park for her youngest, Raj Jr.

“She treated everybody’s birthday like it was hers,” Raj Midder said. “She would go above and beyond.”

“She wanted to celebrate you in any way to make you realize that day that you’re the person that mattered,” McLucas said. “She would go above and beyond to make a person feel loved.”

Lewis worked as a certified nursing assistant. She lived for a time in the Kansas City area, where she worked as a corrections officer for two or three years. It was tough work, but she felt she made a difference, her family said. Some people even wrote her letters after they got out of jail to thank her for helping them get their lives straightened out.

Lewis moved back to Omaha five or six years ago after her oldest child’s father died.

She worked at nursing homes and assisted living centers. She studied between jobs and child care, completing her studies to become a registered nurse in May.

“She passed her boards on her first try,” Andrea Midder said.

Lewis had hopes of working as an emergency room nurse and branching out into holistic nursing.

July 29 was special because it was the Saturday of Native Omaha Days, the biennial festival that brings thousands of people back to North Omaha to reconnect with family and old friends. It’s one of the biggest events in the city.

One of the traditions of Native Omaha Days is for many people to tailgate, cruise and walk up and down North 24th Street to socialize. It’s not uncommon for the festivities to go well into the wee hours of the morning.

After the Crawford fight, Lewis and Raj Midder went to North Omaha to tailgate. They parked in an apartment parking lot on the west side of 24th Street at Locust Street, kitty-corner from Sacred Heart Catholic Church’s community garden.

They picked that location in part because it was where some of the “older people” were, and thus safer than where the younger crowds were, Raj Midder said.

“We sat and chilled and talked and laughed,” he said. “Lots of old friends coming by. ... We just hang out and have drinks. You’ll see people you haven’t seen in 20 years.”

Midder is widely known in North Omaha because of the work he does as a self-employed contractor, and many people he knows stopped to pass the time.

The Omaha police, who work closely with the Empowerment Network and Native Omaha Days organizers and other community groups, had a strong presence in the area that night, police and neighbors said. But a neighbor, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said the atmosphere changed after about 3 a.m.

“The police left, and when police leave, here come the bad people,” the neighbor said.

“Once bars close at (2 a.m.), we slowly begin working with organizers (and some local community activists) to clear the area and return traffic patterns back to normal,” Lt. Neal Bonacci, a police spokesman, said by email. “On the night of the homicide, that was accomplished shortly after (3 a.m.). Our normal overnight shift conducted patrols in Northeast Precinct for the remainder of the night.”

He noted that the shooting that took Lewis’ life occurred about 4:30 a.m.

Raj Midder said Lewis was sitting in their parked car and people were still walking up and down the street.

“I was leaning on the car and then I got up and started went toward the front of the car,” he said last week, standing beside a memorial erected during a prayer walk at the scene of the shooting. “When I started to go back, the shooting started. I saw two guys shooting this way.”

People started running and hitting the ground. Midder said the two people with guns were about a half-block east on Locust Street shooting toward 24th Street. He had no idea who they were, or why they were shooting, he said.

Raj Midder and neighbors said there were two bursts of gunfire. He estimated there were 20 shots. Neighbors said they heard five to seven shots in each burst.

Midder said someone running knocked him to the ground.

“As they were shooting, I was trying to get back to her,” Midder said. “Somebody shoved me out of the way. They stopped shooting for a second, and Le’Zah got out of the car and crawled toward me and said she was hit.”

He put Lewis in the car and raced to the CHI clinic at 24th and Cuming streets.

“They worked on her there, then took her to Bergan,” Midder said.

Lewis was later declared deceased at Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy.

Midder said he doesn’t know why the gunmen fired into the crowd, and hasn’t heard anything from police. Bonacci confirmed that the shots were fired from the east, but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

No one had been arrested by Friday evening for the shootings.

Midder said Lewis and he could not have been the targets.

“Nobody has any reason to shoot at us,” he said. “Definitely not her. And I don’t have any beef out here with anybody. I’m 33. Everybody I’m around is older and we don’t get into that crazy life; we’re just trying to make it home to our kids every night.”

Lewis did not make it home to her children.