Even though he was the baby of the family, Tyeece Lovett was always known as Poppa.
“It’s because he was the main man who held everybody together no matter what the situation was,” said his mom, Tanya Anderson, as she cried. “He was our everything.”
Before he was killed, he had just moved into an apartment he shared with his girlfriend and bought himself a car, a Mustang that was very proud of. He was working at Enterprise as a Transporter/ Cleaner and giving back when he had free time. He would assist his father with feeding the homeless in Frankford.
“Tyeece was the right guy, he would do everything for anyone that he could, this is so hard for me to wrap my mind around” stated his father Robert Lovett.
He loved life, animals, loved fishing, and riding dirt bikes in his spare time. Tanya moved her family out of Philadelphia to Delaware when Tyeece was about 6 years old but they visited often because of their close ties to Philadelphia to family and friends.
As the children were growing up Tanya would spend a lot of time with her children. They had game night, girl’s night, boy’s night and a lot of times all of the children would invade each other night turning it into family night.
One family night Poppa called everyone into the kitchen and got a Tupperware bowl. Poppa placed Christmas lights in the Tupperware bowl and placed them into the microwave. The lights lit up but moments later the microwave exploded and Poppa said that wasn’t supposed to happen. The family all laughed and his face was priceless.
Poppa loved fashion and stayed well dressed in the latest fashions, always kept a smile on his face with a jolly go lucky personality to match. He was a people person who deeply loved and was involved with his family and friends. If there was any trouble, he’d try to get a smile on their faces and make peace if it was chaos. He even loved to clean.
“One of his sisters recalled he came over to my house one day and yes it was a mess,” Robert said. “I was upstairs and when I came downstairs guess who was cleaning up for me. I didn’t ask him; he just did it. That is what he would do looking for nothing in return.”
But his bright light was cut short on May 20, 2022, when he and another person were shot on the 1400 block of North 55th Street. Officers found Tyeece suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and he died later that day. A suspect was charged in his murder four months later.
His siblings have taken his death very hard. One, Kenny, says they had just spoken 10 minutes before everything happened and feels like he let him down. “We were 12 years apart and he used to get on my nerves,” he said. “But I miss him so much.” He always played games, went to the movies and played basketball with another brother, Kadeem. His sister, Zykia, said they spent a lot of time together at the mall. “I would rent him cars, and do big sister things with him.” And Rahmira said, “Poppa was my baby, I made sure he was taken care off.”
Not only did his death have an effect on his parents and siblings but his nephews and nieces as well because Poppa would keep the family tradition alive and have boy’s day, and girl’s day where he would take them out and play basketball with the boys and take the girls out where ever they wanted to go.
The night he was in Philadelphia visiting he was there to see a family friend go on his prom. After the shooting happened the young man didn’t make it to his prom because he was in too much emotional pain and grief.
“When Tyeece was younger he got a splinter in his foot and I was crying for him. I wanted to protect my son from any and everything,” Robert recalled. “He was always right here with me by my side. If he wasn’t we was on the phone talking. He would assist me with taking care of the dogs.”
Tanya words of wisdom: “Trust God, if you don’t have God while you’re going through something like this, this will break you.”
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