25 July 2009
Gary Johnson of Roxbury.
Posted by nico under: Life as we know it .
I just learned of a case involving a Roxbury teenager who shot and killed the owner of a restaurant in Dorchester, MA. According to what I’ve read, the teen went in to the store, demanded money, and ran. The owner proceeded to chase him down the street. The teen shot into the air and continued to run. The owner continued to chase him until eventually the teen shot him in the head.
From all accounts, the owner was a great guy. He’d let the neighborhood kids pay for the pizza with however much money they had even if it wasn’t enough. He was kind and generous and definitely did not deserve to die.
I can’t seem to find any background information on the teen. I guess because we as a society don’t care about him…just about how we are going to punish him for his crime. His life didn’t matter before and it isn’t going to matter afterward to us.
I am not in any way blaming the owner or justifying the actions of the teen. I am saying that we need to proactively involve ourselves in the lives of youths in order to prevent situations like this from happening.
We also need to realize that if someone who obviously has some issues going on tries to commit a nonviolent crime against us, it’s not the time or the place to go chasing after them to get back your $60-80. How much more change can happen if we were to go to the youth’s house with a neighborhood group and invite him to join us? How much more change can happen if we stop looking at these kids as thugs and gangsters and start seeing them as brothers and sisters? We need to unite our communities against crimes like this by holding meetings and rallies instead of chasing after young kids with issues carrying guns. We need to immerse ourselves into our communities and work with our youth to create positive change. We can accomplish so much more together than we could ever dream of doing alone.
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