Her youngest son was killed in a mass shooting. Now, her eldest is charged with committing one.

Two mass shootings, just years apart, forever altered Nyshyia Thomas’ life.

In July 2023, her 15-year-old son, DaJuan Brown, was shot and killed when a mentally ill man dressed in body armor gunned down five people at random on the streets of Kingsessing.

Then, two years later, almost to the day, police say Thomas’ son, Daquan Brown, was one of at least 15 people who fired guns aimlessly down the 1500 block of Etting Street, leaving three dead and 10 others wounded.

It’s a symmetry almost too painful for the mother to reconcile: one son killed in a mass shooting, another behind bars, charged with committing one.

Last month, Thomas, 37, sat inside the Philadelphia courthouse and faced the man who killed her youngest son and set in motion the crumbling of her family.

This week, she will return, but to sit on the other side of the room — to see her eldest son in shackles, seated behind plexiglass, charged with three counts of murder, nine counts of attempted murder, and causing a catastrophe and riot.

She said her 21-year-old son feared for his life when he fired his legally owned gun twice down Etting Street the night of July 7, and that prosecutors have charged him with killings he didn’t commit.

But she also feels for the families of the victims — one of them her son’s close friend — and imagines that, if she were in their shoes, she would want everyone who fired a gun to face consequences.

“From being on both sides of this, it’s overwhelming, it’s unfair,” she said. “But I understand.”

The July 7 party on Etting Street was one of two on the block that weekend celebrating the July Fourth holiday and the lives of some young men from the neighborhood who had been killed in recent years. Daquan Brown grew up about a block away and went to see childhood friends, his mother said.

Shortly after 1 a.m., police said, gunfire erupted. Officers responded to find that more than 120 bullets had been fired down the street in nearly all directions, striking neighbors’ homes and cars — and 13 partygoers.

Three men died. Zahir Wylie, 23, was struck in the chest, and Jason Reese, 19, was shot in the head. Azir Harris, 27, who used a wheelchair after being paralyzed in an earlier shooting, was struck in the back.

Initially, police thought someone had shot up the party in a targeted attack. But after reviewing video footage, interviewing witnesses, and analyzing ballistics, detectives now believe the partygoers may have unintentionally shot each other.

After people heard what they thought was the sound of gunfire — someone at the gathering may have shot once into the air or a car passing by may have backfired — at least 15 people pulled out their weapons and sprayed dozens of shots down the block, police said.

Brown, police said, was among them. As gunfire erupted, he took cover between cars and fired two shots down the block, according to two law enforcement sources who asked not to be named to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Investigators don’t know whether any of the shots Brown fired struck or killed anyone, the sources said. A full ballistics report is still pending, though it may never be able to determine whose bullets struck each victim.

Four other men have also been charged with murder and related crimes.

Thomas has tried to come to terms with the police narrative. She is adamant that her son, having fired only two shots, shouldn’t be charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. He feared for his life and acted in self-defense, she said.

At the same time, she said, had it been her son who was shot and killed that night, she would not want to hear from anyone trying to make sense of it.

Still, she finds herself doing that. Brown, who worked as a security guard and has no criminal record, only started carrying the 9mm handgun because of what happened to his brother, she said.

She remembered talking to him before he bought the weapon last year.

“Mom, I lost my brother,” Thomas said he told her. “Y’all not burying me.”

“I kissed him,” she said. “I told him I respect it.”

Brown’s father, Tyejuan, is also jailed with him.

On the night of July 7, she and Tyejuan, the father of her three children, were talking on the porch of her home when they heard dozens of gunshots coming from Etting Street. Tyejuan Brown, she said, took off running toward the party where his son was gathered.

When Thomas reached the block, she said, she found Tyejuan and Daquan covered in blood from carrying bodies to police cruisers.

But police said that when they reviewed surveillance footage from that night, they saw Tyejuan Brown rushing down the street holding a gun, which he is barred from owning because of drug, gun, and assault convictions.

He was arrested in early August and charged with illegal gun possession.

Four days later, they came for his son.

Until recently, Daquan Brown and his father were housed in the same block at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility and would speak to each other through a shared cell wall.

Brown is held without bail. Thomas said her family has gathered the $25,000 necessary for the father’s bail, but he has told them not to post it.

“I’m not coming out without my son,” Thomas said he told her.

On the outside, Thomas and her 15-year-old daughter, Nesiyah, are left to grapple with the absence of the three men in their lives they love most.

“I lost one son to gun violence,” Thomas said. “I’ll be damned if I let the system take my other one from me.”