‘A dream that life could be better’: Family dedicated to uplifting Jackson mourns the loss of their own to gun violence ...Middle East

Karah Spencer Perkins Potter died from the kind of pervasive gun violence her family has spent decades working to curb in Jackson.

At her funeral service Wednesday, family members, friends and others talked about the 23-year-old’s spirit, smile and servant’s heart — reminiscent of her grandfather, renowned civil rights and evangelical leader, the Rev. John Perkins, who advocated for development and racial reconciliation in west Jackson.  

While working at a summer camp run by her family’s nonprofit, the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation, Potter helped local kids, taking them for a haircut or out to eat. With her friends, she’d dream up ways to build back Jackson’s forgotten communities.

“She was right on the edge of everything opening up, and she was walking forward with flair,” Liz Perkins, Potter’s aunt, said during the service at New Horizon Church International. “She had a way of making people feel safe just by being with her.” 

But her family believes Potter’s desire to help and protect others may have led to her death in the early morning hours of June 22, 2025.

Potter and some friends had just come from a club when they stopped at a gas station on Northside Drive off I-55 at about 4:40 a.m. There, Potter’s friend and the friend’s boyfriend, Phillip Bullock, got into an argument, and Potter intervened.

An off-duty officer who witnessed the incident said he saw Potter and Bullock arguing with guns in their hands, and Potter fired her gun into the air, according to a redacted report from Capitol Police, the responding agency. The officer also saw Bullock shoot Potter, who fell to the ground, the report said.

After firing, Bullock drove away, and the off-duty officer shot at Bullock, according to the report. 

Officers did not find a weapon at the scene, according to the report. Capitol Police called Potter’s family soon after, and Perkins said they told her the gas station’s video showed Potter was tussling with Bullock when he grabbed her hand, pushed it down, pulled out his gun and shot her in the head. 

The officer also told Perkins that they were still looking for the gun Potter supposedly had. “If she shot the gun, where is the gun?” she asked.

But Bullock has not been charged with Potter’s killing. While the Capitol Police incident report listed his initial charge as aggravated assault, Bullock was charged with possession of a gun as a convicted felon, according to Hinds County Court records. A call to Bullock’s court-appointed public defender was not returned.

In 2017, he had pleaded guilty to aggravated assault against his sister-in-law in Holmes County as well as home invasion. The judge gave him seven years in prison.

Potter’s family is outraged.

“He got out Tuesday, the day after she was declared dead,” said Potter’s mother, Joanie. “He should be charged with murder.”

Perkins said Bullock, who lives just two doors down from the family in west Jackson, is now claiming self-defense, but her understanding is that Potter was trying to get her friend away from him. 

“We ain’t saying she was perfect,” Perkins said, “but Karah was a human being who didn’t need to be shot down like a dog.”

Potter’s parents say she was a charismatic young adult who was trying to figure out her future. After moving to Starkville to attend Mississippi State University, Potter decided not to enroll and moved back home to live with her parents while managing a soap store and studying for the real estate exam. 

“That was going to change her trajectory,” her mother said.

Potter had also recently started bartending at Babes, a local club. In the past month or so, Potter’s mother discovered a gun in her daughter’s drawer and questioned her, but Potter insisted she needed the gun for protection and that everyone at the club had one.

Her mother argued against it. “What about a man overpowering you and killing you with your gun?” her mother quoted herself as asking Potter.

At the service Wednesday, clergymen passed out tissues as gatherers watched videos of Potter laughing, blowing out birthday cake candles, playing with puppies and kittens, visiting Washington, D.C., and riding a horse. 

When Potter’s father Ron Potter and his wife got the call from the Capitol Police, Ron said they feared that Potter had been in a car accident. The detective said no, Ron said, she was shot in the head. 

“I was faced with a critical question that I’ve wrestled with for years now,” he said. “That question takes on real flesh, and the question is, does the Christian faith have anything meaningful to say to the lived realities of injustice, terminal illness, sickness, death?” 

In search of answers, Ron said he was forced to take a look at what he called “signals of transcendence” that Potter possessed, or the ways in which God revealed himself through Potter, such as her appreciation for beauty, her desire to form relationships with others and her empathy. 

Those qualities were reflected in many of the other testimonies to Potter’s life. Several of her cousins spoke, and they all said she was like a sister to them. 

One cousin, Shelby Perkins, shared 23 memories for each year of Potter’s life: Her dimples, visiting Jamaica, dinner at the Mighty Crab, shucking peas in their grandma’s kitchen, riding home from the reservoir in the back of their uncle’s truck, holding each other tight as they walked up creaky stairs in their family home, and how the kids at the summer camp adored “Miss KK.” 

“I thank God for handpicking us to be cousins,” she said. 

Potter’s older sister Varah shared that the family adopted Potter, who was just 18 days old, because Varah wanted a little sister. Varah, who is seven years older, said the two did not always get along, though they’d grown closer in recent years. 

“We were like oil and water,” Varah said.

Then Varah read a poem inspired by the flowers that Potter loved. 

Potter’s hairstylist said she wanted to tell Potter’s mother that “she was a good soul and you raised her right.” Another friend said that the day Potter died, she had just left the doctor’s office and was planning to tell Potter that she was pregnant. 

“Now she knows, of course she knows, she’s everywhere now,” she said. 

To honor Potter, the Perkins family has set up the Sunshine Scholarship Fund at the Perkins Foundation to aid young people heading to college. Potter’s parents also say they also plan to work to dissuade young people from owning guns. 

Potter grew up in a family dedicated to community service. The Perkins Foundation, founded in 1983, focuses on “transforming lives, equipping leaders and restoring hope in communities.”

Catherine Cook, who went to high school with Potter at Saint Joseph Catholic School in Madison, said Potter wanted to follow in those footsteps, but the world can be a cruel place for people like Potter who have a big heart. 

“Still, she had a dream that life could be better,” she said. “We would drive around Jackson and point at a building and say this is the business that I want to put in this building or this is how I want to build up the community and I just, I would hate to see her dream never come true.” 

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