Rashad Walker Jr. (pictured) was just 20 months old when he died. The child was killed in the back of his mother's minivan in Syracuse, N.Y., when he was shot with up to 10 bullets while he was sleeping at 4:30 p.m. this past Sunday. His mother was holding him when paramedics arrived on the scene.
Walker died at 6:45 p.m. in the hospital, but he was not the intended target.
The story of Rashad Walker is clearly one of the most tragic incidents we've read about all year. It takes us back to the police shooting of Aiyana Jones, the 7-year-old in Detroit who was shot while sleeping during a police raid. This story is also personal to me because I live in Syracuse, a city that (like so many others) continues to be plagued by gun violence.
Events like this emphasize the importance of community policing and helping officers apprehend those who are responsible for creating this kind of pain in our communities. Also, these incidents tell us that we've got to do something to slow down the gun violence in America's cities. The weapons that are killing our children should be taken off the streets.
Another thing about Syracuse, as well as many other urban areas around the nation, is that the educational system is plagued with inadequacies. There are not enough activities to keep young people off the streets, and there are few, if any, jobs available for inner-city youth. Such dire conditions breed the kind of hopelessness that leads to violent incidents like this.
The criminal justice system make matters worse by showing an insatiable willingness to abuse and incarcerate defendants rather than rehabilitate them. By removing so many fathers from the inner city, we have children who grow up to become either victims or perpetrators of violent crime. This cycle has got to stop.
16-Nov-10 - Forty-five years after he was killed by an Alabama State Trooper, Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose death lead to the first civil rights march on Selma, he is finally getting a small measure of justice.
12-Nov-10 - In a case better suited for Judge Mathis, Paula Cook is proceeding with her civil suit against Fantasia Barrino for an antiquated legal cause of action called "Alienation of Affection" in a North Carolina court.
We as a community need to stop allowing the people responsible for these acts of violence to go unpunished. This child deserved a chance to live and that was taken away from him in a horrible way. Someone knows who commited this crime and is protecting them, leaving them free to do this again. WE HAVE TO STOP THIS NOW! Love does not mean shielding people from punishment but loving them through it.
Love the last sentence! I wish more people thought like you do, including rich people in the suburbs who shield their children from taking responsibility!
Good luck with matters like this. Most of us are afraid to get involved directly in matters like this. We are a very PC Country where saying or mistating a thought can polarize peoples.
Don't know the numbers about recitivism but teaching people a job skill, education etc would seem to make sense.
Our communities have not been the same since the introduction of crack into our communities. Guns are so plentiful, yet the manufacturer does not want stand accused of producing way too many. Each generation likes to live the life of good and plenty but not take responsibiliy for their actions. We can't blame one without blaming the other. We talk of the community working together, but forget, our rights were taken away from us when the way we were taught to disipline our children is now a form of child abuse. We can't save all but we can save some. It starts at home.
The ordinary man, woman or child does not produce the guns, the manufacturer does. It's the fool that picks it up and use it amongst one another that gets convicted. Shouldn't conviction go all around!!!!! Too many lives are lost because of carelessness. Lives are being struck down too soon because someone did not take the time to lock it down. We are losing generations too soon, Convict the killer, convict the person for whom the gun may have been stolen and convict the manufacturer for not educating the owners of these weapons that are killing our children and our families. Take it one step further, not everyone has the right to bare arms, change that law.
You meant to tell me that you believe these thugs aren't breaking gun laws?? I'd bet my life this baby killer was breaking existing gun laws.
Maybe we don't need more laws. Maybe enforcing the laws we already have would do it. We could fill a bunch of new prisons with people caught breaking existing gun laws and maybe the streets would be safe for the rest of us.
I saw a lot of communities destroyed, the black community being the worst of them, when rights to discipline kids were taken away and disciplinary techniques favored by the monied up culture (white culture) was enforced instead.
Bad, rotten kids with young parents fearing to discipline them fearing protective services would take them away were being raised across the board. No one is authorizing parents to BEAT their kids or abuse their kids. Each child in the family is uniquely different each requiring a little more or little less discipline. But no one could raise their kids with the type of discipline needed to overcome the environments they were having to grow up in or that which the parent had learned to survive in. That degree of sensitivity was taken away.
Bad white kids or rich kids don't suffer as much as they won't be penalized the way blacks are in the prison system or unemployment.
This tragedy leaves one grasping for air, as we try to grapple with the senseless loss of life. One can only imagine the depth of despair that this child's parents (mother and father) are experiencing. However, there are so many relevant (if certainly secondary) details that are not included here. They should be addressed before the mainstream media picks this story up and begins "blaming the victimized parties." For example, for how long was the infant left in the van? Where was the mother or other caretaker, while the child lay asleep, in the evening hours, in a parked vehicle? Was the vehicle even parked? Perhaps, it was moving and the shots were fired into a moving vehicle. In any case, we want to address these details, to preempt any further tragedy caused by a less sympathetic (or humane)treatment of this story in media. My prayers and thoughts are with this child's family--immediate and extended, throughout his community. Peace
Lord Have Mercy! My Heart Goes Out To The Mom and The Family. Please Stop The Senseless Violence Now!Look At Who You're Hurting - Look At Who You're Killing! Stop! Now! In The Name Of All That Is Greater Goodness For This Universe!
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Comments: (27)
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By: kiki on 11/30/2010 9:48AM
We as a community need to stop allowing the people responsible for these acts of violence to go unpunished. This child deserved a chance to live and that was taken away from him in a horrible way. Someone knows who commited this crime and is protecting them, leaving them free to do this again. WE HAVE TO STOP THIS NOW! Love does not mean shielding people from punishment but loving them through it.
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By: K Mac on 11/30/2010 12:10PM
Love the last sentence! I wish more people thought like you do, including rich people in the suburbs who shield their children from taking responsibility!
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By: Jerry Flynn on 11/30/2010 11:19AM
Good luck with matters like this. Most of us are afraid to get involved directly in matters like this. We are a very PC Country where saying or mistating a thought can polarize peoples.
Don't know the numbers about recitivism but teaching people a job skill, education etc would seem to make sense.
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By: jean on 11/30/2010 11:09AM
Our communities have not been the same since the introduction of crack into our communities. Guns are so plentiful, yet the manufacturer does not want stand accused of producing way too many. Each generation likes to live the life of good and plenty but not take responsibiliy for their actions. We can't blame one without blaming the other. We talk of the community working together, but forget, our rights were taken away from us when the way we were taught to disipline our children is now a form of child abuse. We can't save all but we can save some. It starts at home.
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By: Eva on 11/30/2010 11:51AM
It is NOT the manufacturer....the individual and the community. Take responsibility....
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By: jean on 11/30/2010 12:47PM
The ordinary man, woman or child does not produce the guns, the manufacturer does. It's the fool that picks it up and use it amongst one another that gets convicted. Shouldn't conviction go all around!!!!! Too many lives are lost because of carelessness. Lives are being struck down too soon because someone did not take the time to lock it down. We are losing generations too soon, Convict the killer, convict the person for whom the gun may have been stolen and convict the manufacturer for not educating the owners of these weapons that are killing our children and our families. Take it one step further, not everyone has the right to bare arms, change that law.
Report This
By: paul on 11/30/2010 5:47PM
@ jean:
"change that law"???
You meant to tell me that you believe these thugs aren't breaking gun laws?? I'd bet my life this baby killer was breaking existing gun laws.
Maybe we don't need more laws. Maybe enforcing the laws we already have would do it. We could fill a bunch of new prisons with people caught breaking existing gun laws and maybe the streets would be safe for the rest of us.
Report This
By: eeduj1001 on 11/30/2010 5:15PM
I saw a lot of communities destroyed, the black community being the worst of them, when rights to discipline kids were taken away and disciplinary techniques favored by the monied up culture (white culture) was enforced instead.
Bad, rotten kids with young parents fearing to discipline them fearing protective services would take them away were being raised across the board. No one is authorizing parents to BEAT their kids or abuse their kids. Each child in the family is uniquely different each requiring a little more or little less discipline. But no one could raise their kids with the type of discipline needed to overcome the environments they were having to grow up in or that which the parent had learned to survive in. That degree of sensitivity was taken away.
Bad white kids or rich kids don't suffer as much as they won't be penalized the way blacks are in the prison system or unemployment.
Report This
By: Phillis Sistah on 11/30/2010 11:28AM
This tragedy leaves one grasping for air, as we try to grapple with the senseless loss of life. One can only imagine the depth of despair that this child's parents (mother and father) are experiencing. However, there are so many relevant (if certainly secondary) details that are not included here. They should be addressed before the mainstream media picks this story up and begins "blaming the victimized parties." For example, for how long was the infant left in the van? Where was the mother or other caretaker, while the child lay asleep, in the evening hours, in a parked vehicle? Was the vehicle even parked? Perhaps, it was moving and the shots were fired into a moving vehicle. In any case, we want to address these details, to preempt any further tragedy caused by a less sympathetic (or humane)treatment of this story in media.
My prayers and thoughts are with this child's family--immediate and extended, throughout his community.
Peace
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By: Mz. D on 11/30/2010 11:24AM
Lord Have Mercy! My Heart Goes Out To The Mom and The Family. Please Stop The Senseless Violence Now!Look At Who You're Hurting - Look At Who You're Killing! Stop! Now! In The Name Of All That Is Greater Goodness For This Universe!
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