Memphis mother warns about homemade machine gun that killed her son: ‘Our city is in trouble'

Yahoo

09-05-2025

MEMPHIS, Tenn — A mother is sounding the alarm about illegal devices being used to turn Glocks into weapons of war. She suffered the loss of her son because of it.
It was January 1, a Saturday afternoon when snow that had blanketed Memphis was starting to melt.
Debra Seaton was at her daughter's apartment in Orange Mound when she says some woman tried to fight her. Her son, LaCurtis Waller, saw and tried to intervene.
'You say something to them, and they ready to shoot you,' Seaton said.
Within a matter of seconds, she saw a gun.
'I knew this was something powerful. It was just so loud, and it was like pop, pop, pop, everywhere,' she said. 'There were so many people out there. There were people running for their lives. Those people were actually running for their lives. There were children out there. My granddaughter was out there.'
The panic soon settled, and the ringing in her ears was then interrupted.
'I heard this young man screaming that Curt was dead,' Seaton said. 'To see your child in the streets, shot and face down. It the snow and the ice. This was murder. Cold-blooded murder.'
Memphis Murder Map 2025
Police said one other person was also shot that day. Seaton believes they were hit by a stray bullet.
Police said they have issued one warrant in connection to the incident, but are still working to find the person who killed Waller.
'When [witnesses] were talking about it, they were saying that it was a Glock. A Glock with a switch on it,' Seaton said.
WREG Investigators have told you about a switch. It's a tiny, illegal device criminals are attaching to their Glock to convert it into a machine gun.
Criminals creating their own machine guns with switch
Law enforcement continues to call it an emerging threat. They showed us how hard it is to control even for one of their most experienced shooters.
Since 2021, the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission says Memphis police seized more than 500 switches.
Despite the danger and destruction they pose, those caught with one have only been facing the lowest felony charge at the state level.
A bill is now headed to the governor's desk to change that. If signed, it will increase the state penalty to a class C felony.
Mother lobbies for tougher punishments for people putting switches on firearms
A move one Memphis mother, Janice Walker, lobbied for. She recently told us her son was shot multiple times by a Glock with a switch attached to it.
She was forced to say her final goodbye in the hospital's ICU.
'The doctor had to literally pop his heart with her hands to get him going again,' Walker said. 'I put my hand on his chest until he stopped. I had to immediately leave the room, because I could no longer breathe.'
Seaton said she saw Walker's story.
'I sympathize with her. I said somebody needs to come together and get something done,' Seaton said. 'Our city is in trouble. We are in trouble.'
Seaton believes there must be a call to action. She'd like to see more churches and mentors getting involved and intervening in young people's lives to break the cycle. Otherwise, she said this will keep happening and will keep destroying families.
'They took away a good man. A good kid. A good-hearted kid,' Seaton said. 'The guys in the neighborhood, who were messed up and homeless, he would bring them into my daughter's house, sit them down at the table and feed them.'
She said Waller helped everyone.
'He was helping everyone! Even in the midst of his struggles, and he was struggling,' she said. 'Big Curt was the protector of his pride. He protected his grandma. He protected his cousins.'
Her protector and loving son was full of love and mercy.
'Let me tell you something. Whoever that was, if they shot him and he lived, you know what he would have did? Later on down the road, he would have forgave him. That's how he was,' Seaton said.
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