Derek Ali

Reporter for 'DDN' is slain

By Cathy Mong and Lou Grieco
Dayton Daily News

DAYTON — Derek Ali, a well-known community figure and Dayton Daily News reporter, was killed Sunday morning pushing a woman away from gunfire at a Lakeridge Court party.

Mr. Ali, 47, had been working as a disc jockey at the private party and was moving his DJ equipment to his car at about 1 a.m. A group of men denied entry became angry and at least one opened fire spraying the building, Dayton Police Sgt. Gary White said.

Mr. Ali pushed the woman out of the way and was shot in the chest, dying at the scene, White said.

"Absolutely senseless," White said. "He was absolutely minding his own business. He did not incite anything. He was not part of the problem there."

No one else was hit by gunfire, White said, but "the woman could have been had he not done what he did."

Police were checking a possible tip on a suspect.

Mr. Ali's death left community leaders and community members shaken.

"It's hard to believe," said Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin, who talked with Mr. Ali as he was DJ'ing Saturday at the Neighbor-To-Neighbor Street Festival at College Hill Park.

"We have to take back our city," she said. "People, not just city leaders, have to rise up and say enough is enough. The police need our help. The days of people standing behind their doors, saying, 'I don't want to get involved,' are over."

Trotwood Mayor Donald K. McLaurin, said, "I don't know what's going on in our world that African-Americans are being gunned down for no reason. It's just terrible to have to deal with this."

"I join the mayor of Dayton in condemning this," McLaurin said. "I'm prayerful that something good in all this will come out. I don't know what that is, but we need something good to come of this."

Mr. Ali, a native of Philadelphia, graduated from Camden High School and Glassboro State College in New Jersey. He was hired by Dayton Newspapers in 1984 as an Action Line Reporter and later became a regional reporter.

He is survived by his former wife, Angela Cathy Williams; daughters Leah, 15, a sophomore at Stivers School for the Arts, and Zuri, 11, a sixth-grader at Horace Mann Montessori School. He also has a grown daughter, Dawn Collins of New Jersey, and three grandchildren.

Mr. Ali was very proud this year to become Worshipful Master of Harmony Lodge 77.

"I knew Derek several years," said Ernest Neilson III, the lodge senior warden. "He was a compassionate individual and would help anybody he could, as often as he could."

Mr. Ali enjoyed working with youth.

"I worked with Derek in 1995," said Jacqueline McKenzie, who called the newspaper after hearing of Mr. Ali's death, recalling that he was instrumental in planning a weeklong trip to Washington, D.C., for a group of young people.

"He was an upstanding kind of guy and did such a good job with those children," she said. "Later, he took a group of children to the University of Dayton to see Desmond Tutu. He's going to be missed."

Mr. Ali served several years as adjunct adviser for the Tiger Times, a student newspaper at Stivers, mentoring students interested in journalism.

His affiliations included Omega Baptist Church and St. John Missionary Baptist Church; a charter, executive board member and past president of the Dayton Association of Black Journalists; charter member of Alpha Phi Alpha Nu Iota Chapter at Glassboro State College.

In 1999 he was named a YMCA Black Achiever.

"I was just talking Saturday about what a great guy Derek was," said Butler Twp. Administrator Joe Flanagan. "He was just a class act."

Clayton Mayor Ted Gudorf said, "The thing that stands out about Derek is that you liked him as a human being. He was engaged in the community and was incredibly likeable."

Former DDN staffer Dave Kepple, now pastor of Union Chapel United Methodist Church in Butler County, said he respected Mr. Ali as a journalist, but also "as a man of faith. Though our hearts are shocked and terribly saddened," Kepple said, "there is at least some measure of comfort knowing Derek is with his Lord and Savior, in that place where God wipes away every tear."

Services for Mr. Ali are pending at Loritts-Neilson Funeral Home, 3924 W. Third St.