Four Teenagers Charged in Beating Death of Chicago Student

The video of 16-year-old Derrion Albert being beaten to death is hard enough to watch. The audio makes it almost unbearable.

When Albert is struck in the head with a board we hear the crackling of the wood colliding with his skull. As he falls to the ground we hear the slapping sound as another boy punches the honor student in the side of the head. There are more noises as various kids rush in and kick him while he's on the ground."Damn, put the n****a to sleep," somebody yells. "Damn, they knocked him out," someone else screams out.

And then we hear words that are heard too often in our communities.

"They killin' him," a female voice yells.

"Get up, Derrion, please get up," another girl yells as they drag his lifeless body in to a building.

"It hurt to watch," said LaTonia Williams, the teen's aunt.

Friends and family say Albert was a good kid and honors student with no gang ties. Other say he was trying to help a friend who got caught up in the melee. Whatever the case, this is self-hate exemplified.

After a young black man is killed by gun violence in a tragedy that has become all too common, you'll usually hear somebody say, "Back in the day, we would just fight with our hands."

But as this video makes painfully clear, it doesn't matter whether we use a gun, a knife (or in Albert's case), a board and hands and feet. We are killing one another over nonsense. Why do we hate one another so much that we are willing to use whatever method is available to bring harm to our neighbors?

Where are the adults who are tired of going to funerals?

Homicide is the second leading cause of death for teens ages 15 to 19 after motor vehicle accidents in the United States. According to the Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2,291 teen deaths were due to homicide in 2006. African-Americans had the second highest homicide rate, 85 per 10,000 teens, in the country. That is 30 percent higher than the national average.

From September 2007 to September 2008, 36 Chicago public school students were killed. Students at Fenger High School say the rival gangs have been going at it for weeks. No guns, just straight-up hand-to-hand combat. If the adults in the community knew this was happening, why weren't there parents there after school to make sure that everyone dispersed before they had a chance to mix it up? We've already seen what can happen without intervention.

U.S. Senator Roland W. Burris (D, Illinois) put it best, in a statement yesterday:

We can no longer stand by as an entire generation of young men and women fall victim to these senseless crimes. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a community to protect them. Our communities must take responsibility for policing our youngsters with a complete intolerance for violence. Our parents must take ownership of their children and shoulder the responsibility of steering them clear of gangs and violence. We can no longer stand by and hope this problem resolves itself.

A stronger police presence would have helped, but do you think these kids would have had the audacity to beat one another with wooden boards and stomp an already severely injured kid laying on the ground if their parents were there watching?

What if the elders of the community stepped in to the middle of the senseless violence? What if we heard their voices on that video yelling for those kids to break it up? What if the men of that community were there to physically grab the rail ties out of those kids' hands? What if someone lay across Albert so that no one else could attack him? What if we loved one another enough to resolve not to do harm to our neighbors?

Four teenagers, ages 16 to 19, were arrested in Albert's death and will be charged as adults in his murder, according to prosecutors. They are: Silvonus Shannon, 19; Eugene Riley, 18; Eugene Bailey, 17; and Eric Carson, 16. That just means four families are now in mourning. What drastic actions are parents going to take to make sure there are no more Derrion Alberts?