‘They took another good one': DC mother loses 2nd child to gun violence

A mother is mourning the loss of a second child to gun violence in D.C.

Malik Gliss was gunned down in his home in the Congress Heights neighborhood last week. He was 31. His sister Tamara Gliss was killed eight years earlier at a cookout near her home in Shaw.

“They took another good one – my kid,” their mother, Sandra Gliss, said through tears.

She said she knew something was wrong when her son didn’t answer his phone. She went to his apartment on Sixth Street SE and saw a crime scene.

“I just passed out,” she said.

“Not again. Not again. I can’t go through this again,” she said.

Her son had tried to soothe her over the death of her daughter.

“Malik told me, he said, ‘Mom, you’ll never have to worry about that again.’ And here I am,” Sandra Gliss said.

Malik Gliss went through a violence prevention program in 2022. His mom said he made a turnaround in his ways and mindset. He got his own apartment, was working and was focused on his three children, she said.

“I was just so proud of him, because he had his stuff together,” his mother said.

The interim director of the D.C. Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement called him a walking testimony. He wanted to become a violence interrupter.

“He was on the right track. He was making a difference, and he made a difference, and we felt it,” Kwelli Sneed said.

No one was immediately arrested in the case, and no information on a motive was released.

Tamara Gliss’ murder case was closed in 2016 after the person who police identified as the suspect died.

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Sandra Gliss said she’s relying on her faith to get through another loss. The family is planning a vigil Friday and a funeral on Feb. 10.

“As a community, we gotta do better. We gotta do better,” she said.