Please take a moment to remember the many young lives that will not see 2008.
Caption for this picture from the LA Times reads as follows: “HR (Homicide Report) has been returning every month to interview Barbara Pritchett and her family since June, when Pritchett’s 15-year-old son Dovon Harris was murdered in the Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts. Above, Pritchett and daughter Dwaina at Dovon’s gravesite Friday.”
About Dovon Harris (LATimes.com)–
Centennial High guidance counselor Juan Ball, above, learned of the June 14 shooting of 15-year-old Dovon Harris by phone (see entry). She rushed to UCLA-Harbor Medical Center, where the tall teenager was on life support after being injured in a Watts drive-by.
Ball had taken a particular interest in Dovon, a 10th-grader at the Compton school. “I’ve got my eye on you!” she would tell him, pointing a stern index finger his way. “I’ve got expectations for you!” Dovon, usually a blur of affectionate energy, would be stopped short–reduced, for once, to blushing speechlessness.
He loved to hang around her office, cracking jokes, talking incessantly, being silly–dawdling when he was supposed to be headed to class. “Dovon, get out of here! Go to class!” Ball would tell him, exasperated. “He would make you laugh, and you just couldn’t stay mad,” she said.
Teachers came to Ball declaring that Dovon drove them crazy, then say they wanted to work with him anyway. More recently, Ball sensed progress. Dovon seemed to be maturing. “Dovon, what are your plans?” she demanded one day. “To go to college,” he answered. Ball pointed her stern index finger at him. “Now remember: that came out of your mouth not mine, and I’m going to hold you to it,” she said.
At the hospital last weekend, she saw him on the ventilator, swollen, his face burned. She learned he was brain-dead, but still could not believe he was dying. She felt sick, near collapse.
At home later, she lay awake. She kept seeing Dovon’s face in the dark. She considers herself a “realist counselor,” she said, urging students to prepare relentlessly for a world that won’t do them favors. But “I did not prepare for this,” she said. (source)
As of 12/23/07, 266 Black Americans (mostly men) have died due to homicide in Los Angeles (source)
As of a few days ago, 277 homicides have taken place in the city of Baltimore -
277th killing in ’07 is grim milestone
City’s homicide total surpasses all of last year
By Gus G. Sentementes | Sun reporter
Six hours after another man fell to another shooting in Baltimore, detectives were back on South Paca Street in the daylight yesterday, scouring sidewalks and patches of grass near a tattered city tennis court for clues.
The four investigators still didn’t know the name of the victim or his age. It was, in many ways, a typical Baltimore homicide – a man shot several times and left on a bloodied Southwest Baltimore corner, leaving police with no apparent motive and no suspects.
“Right now, all we know is it’s a dead guy in the street,” said Detective Charles Bealefeld.
The victim, however, was the 277th person killed in the city this year, surpassing last year’s number of 276 and serving as another reminder of the violence that has made Baltimore consistently one of the most violent cities in the nation. (more…)
Philly may top 400 for another year.
City to Take New Tack To Curb Gun Violence
Philadelphia’s Mayor-Elect Vows Tough Measures
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
PHILADELPHIA — The incoming mayor of this city is proposing a comprehensive plan of aggressive police tactics, including limiting the movement of people in high-crime neighborhoods and directing officers to increase searches of people on the street for illegal weapons, all in a desperate effort to curtail gun violence and stop the slayings of young black men.
Mayor-elect Michael Nutter, angered by the brazen shooting of a police officer and a persistently high number of killings that threatens to top 400 for a second consecutive year, has vowed to declare a crime emergency as soon as he enters office Jan. 7. Nutter also plans to bring the police force to full strength for the first time in years, saturate high-crime communities with officers, limit or prohibit street gatherings and establish curfews in those neighborhoods. (more…)
Homicides have also been up in Atlanta this year -
Homicides at record level for 2007
Gwinnett also in record year; Fulton, Cobb pass 2006 totals
By DAVID SIMPSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For the second consecutive year, DeKalb County police have handled a record number of homicides.
Through November, 99 homicides were reported in unincorporated DeKalb, up from the previous record of 97 in all of 2006, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of police statistics. The analysis excludes fatal shootings of suspects by police — 12 in 2006, one so far in 2007. (more…)
And let’s not forget cities like Houston, Detroit and others that have seen a bump in numbers of homicides involving out Black men.
Do what you can to stop this trend in the coming year. Future generations are counting on you!
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