Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
COMMENTARY Victims of brutality hold on to tough love
By MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star
By MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star
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ReprintHere’s a message for the three punks who robbed a Kansas City family last week. The crew callously waved a gun in the face of a young mother as she held her infant daughter, her toddler nearby.
You robbed people who are most sympathetic to your plight. They worry about what rap videos do to young black men. They think about the culture of want without meaningful work, of poverty and fatherless upbringings. They see you as a sort of victim, so willingly convinced yourselves that your lives are worthless.
In your spree, you netted $300 in Christmas savings, two purses, a cell phone and a relatively inexpensive wedding ring.
In the mayhem, the victims escaped to find refuge with the neighbor. He grabbed his gun and headed into the house. It became a shootout.
This family that you robbed is trying to keep a Kansas City restaurant/bar afloat. They don’t own many possessions.
But right now, their focus is on getting financial help for their Good Samaritan neighbor, the one you shot. He’s still in the hospital, more than a week after a bullet entered his back and nicked his spinal cord, causing nerve damage. He’s got a mortgage to pay and isn’t going to work anytime soon.
Your 15-year-old buddy, the one who was also took a bullet, is in custody after showing up at a hospital.
Oh, don’t worry, police say, his mom’s telling him not to snitch. Wonder if she ever advised her son how manly it is to put a gun barrel in a baby’s face?
It’s maddening, really. At City Hall today, officials will talk some more about the stereotyping of young black men as violent, the issue causing the Power & Light District self-imposed grief with its silly dress codes. Perhaps you could tell them that clothes don’t make the humanity. Meanness like yours is likely deep inside.
The couch has bullet holes and a bloodstain is still on the windowsill, but this family knows they will recover. They’re solid people. It’s the three of you they worry about. What will your future hold?
The father, who wasn’t home when you forced your way into his Longfellow home, already has looked into the time you could serve if convicted. He considers it a tragic but perhaps necessary outcome to turn your lives in another direction.
He and his wife are referencing their Baptist faith, thinking about what God might want them to feel right now.
“We’re called to forgive,” the father said, “and we hope that life has better things in store for them.”