Derrion Albert was, by all accounts, a good kid who did what he was supposed to, studied hard and stayed out of trouble. This week he became famous in death, the latest casualty of Chicago's street violence. The video images of his fatal beating have made national news, providing a starkly different view of Chicago than the one being peddled in Copenhagen this week.
Decent people recoil from the violence captured on that video. Cops look at it and aren't shocked at all. Here's what
Second City Cop had to say about it when the video first surfaced:
Here's the truly sad part - we and our readers have been pointing out
for some time now that this is just a typical Chicago high school
dismissal. It's played out time after time, day after day, across the
entire west and south sides. Crane, Marshall, Orr, Bogan, Fenger, etc.
Dozens, maybe scores of beat, rapid and tact cars held down at various
high schools while regular citizens are being denied police service and
backlogs mount.
The video of Derrion Albert's beating doesn't really look much different from
the video of the brawl in Uptown earlier this summer.
Garrard McClendon asked if we're surprised by the violence (no) and suggested that people "
start snitchin'" for Derrion's sake. Garrard might be onto something.
One of my coworkers came up with an interesting idea. He suggested
that, wherever public benefits are distributed (actually, the phrase he
used was "where they give out the free government cheese") grant money
might be used to provide free video cameras to public aid recipients,
with the agreement that they would receive reward money for any crime
they capture on videotape. It would be a novel experiment, people
going to the police with videotaped evidence
before they went to the media.
Back to Derrion Albert. There's
an excellent piece at Message from Montie, and the author Shamontiel Vaughn a
sks
what it will take to get young black men to stop killing each other.
Go check it out and read the comments, because there's a good
discussion about the role of parenting and community on these young
men.
So what can we do? What's the answer to this kind of
violence? It's not more programs. Saying that this violence is a
result of poverty and lack of programs does a disservice to
all the law-abiding, hardworking and decent people in the neighborhoods where these
killings take place. As Montie says:
I watched too many guys with good parents and grandparents who chose to
do whatever they wanted to do anyway. I still remember Suge Knight
saying he grew up in a middle-class family and his parents were nothing
like him, and that guy definitely was wilding out. And a couple of guys
I was thinking of who are on the straight and narrow had cracked-out
and alcoholic mothers and no father figure, but they were just fed up
with their environment. And all of them had jobs.
To
put it simply, some people are beyond our help, and all the spending,
programs, jobs, and interventions in the world won't accomplish much in
the presence of young men who choose to be murderous thugs. It looks
like
we can't even hold an anti-violence memorial without having it devolve into shouting matches.
The
sad truth is that Derrion Albert is the latest Chicago victim
whose death has been seen as emblematic of some greater trend or
societal problem. He will not be the last.
In October 1992,
7-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot
and killed while walking to school with his mother. He was shot by gang
member Anthony Garrett, firing a rifle from a 10th floor window. His
death prompted the first so-called "gang truce" in Chicago.
Does anyone remember
Robert "Yummy" Sandifer?
In August 1994, 11-year-old Sandifer was already known as a thug in his
neighborhood. He had been arrested more than 20 times by the age of
11. He shot and killed a 14-year-old girl named Shavon Dean while
shooting at rival gang members. For several days his gang kept him on
the move, away from the police. Then, believing he might snitch, they
killed him while he waited for his grandmother to pick him up. Shavon
Dean, his victim, faded from memory, but Yummy made the cover of Time
Magazine.
Just a few weeks later, in October 1994, 5-year-old
Eric Morse was murdered, dropped out of a 14th floor window at the Ida
B. Wells housing project.
Eric was killed by boys who were 10 and 11 years old, because he refused to steal candy for them. His killers, Tykeece Johnson and Jessie Rankins,
grew up in prison, at the time the youngest inmates in the IDOC. They were released in 2004, and have been back since. Eric Morse was
featured in the NY Times:
The image of Eric Morse, hurled to his death in Chicago in 1994, has
been a recurrent one in both local and national politics. Newt Gingrich
cited it in speeches. Henry Cisneros, the Secretary of Housing and
Urban Development, called it a clinching fact in the Government's
decision to take over the Chicago Housing Authority, deemed by Federal
authorities the most dangerous and ill managed in the country. The
Illinois Legislature easily passed a bill permitting 10-year-old
children to be charged with murder and -- as "super predators" -- sent
to maximum-security jails.
A
few years later, in January 1997, 9-year-old Shatoya Currie (known at
the time as "Girl X") was found raped, beaten and poisoned in a
stairwell at Cabrini-Green. She was left with gang graffiti drawn on her body. Girl X had the misfortune to be victimized
while the national media was focused on the Jon Benet Ramsey case, but
she eventually made the pages of Time Magazine. In April 1997
ex-convict Patrick Sykes was charged with the attack. He is currently in IDOC. Shatoya Currie remains confined to a wheelchair, blind, and unable to speak.
Each
one of these incidents was greeted with horror, followed by extensive media coverage, and then
calls for action and reform. Now here we are,
years later, discussing the murder of Derrion Albert, and nothing has
changed.
11 Comments
*soon to be mother* said:
when i saw the video and read the story i didnt do nothing but cry. i dont even know the boy but i know people that do know him. that was really not right. as i type icry because this was not caused for. im a teen myself ad i wonder why other teens just dont care about the problem that this innocent boy died
Moshucat said:
Let me say how sorry I am for the family and frineds of Derrion but the thugs too. We need new legislation to back up the police. Get rid of these useless politicians who don't have our best interest at heart. No more programs, we have plenty. Our race is self destructing and we pray and have vigils that are good but not effective. The Bible says God helps those that help themselves. Some of these thugs can be helpeed, lets get their attention and save the ones we can and the rest go to hell.
Moshucat said:
Does anyone remember "Anti-Gang Loitering"? Struck down by the courts because we might violate the Civil Rights of the little thugs on the corners. We need to resurrect that legislation, rewrite it according to the guidelines of the judge that struck it down. The businessmen of Roseland are NOW ready to give jobs and help. Who will you give them to? The good kids or the thugs? Is it the good kids that need all the help? Think people.
Dr X said:
Good post, links and nice review of history. One thought about the video camera suggestion: I suspect that many people in these neighborhoods already have phones that can record video. Might it just be a matter of developing a well-publicized reward program for citizens who bring crime videos to the police? In any case, I think the reward for video suggestion is a very interesting one that gets around the discomfort some civil libertarians have with 24/7 government street cameras. The same cameras that are sometimes been used to document police misconduct (with the full support and approval of civil libertarians) could be turned on criminals.
namaste said:
Great history review....What it will take is commitment and who is going to commit to, basically taking care/responsibility for someone's child. Too many laws, too much give and take and no fame and glory in it for many. The change has to come from the top, from someone visible who express a value for these lives and can cause a ripple effect in communities outside the affected communities.
Otherwise, the police are just going to keep boxing in this type of terror--which really isn't any different from the violence in war torn countries.
Brian 'Wiz' Ray said:
Acutally Joe, I often think of Yummy Sandifer's murder when I hear about these kinds of crimes, I am surprised you did not bring up the murder of Blair Holt as well. And just like you, I know that this is how school lets out, when my son attended Bowen over on the East Side, he was pulled out of the front door of a CTA bus for a round of "Point 'em out, knock em' out",
I remember leaving work, going up to the school to get him and then returning the next day to really find out WTF from the security guards who informed me that they do not feel the bus stop is under their care, so they, already stretched to the limit, do not offer any protection to students at the bus stop.
While I was in the security office, a black guard, hustled a Mexican kid into the office for, get this, using the n-word. Not that he called anyone that, he used it as a reference to an NBA playere who could not play basketball very well. The fact that he was talking to black kids who were not offended by his using the termm, since they were using it too, seemed to escape the guard who chose this rather foolish pursuit over more important matters like guarding the bus stop.
As a citizen, I would rather you take better care of the children since they are the ones who need it most. Though that seems to be ignored until someone is dead. Put cops both undercover and in uniform on the buses between 2 PM and 6 PM. I know, there are not enough police, until someone gets shot, then there are police all over the place.
Aren't their already cameras installed all over the city for the purposes of security? Yes there are, the thing is there are not enough people to watch them. At least not taking 4-6 hours out of the day to sit under someone's thumb. Easy answer open access to all the citizens, let us log on and watch the cameras we want to watch.
But back to memories of crimes, do you remember how Shorty G's girlfriend was a police officer in Chatham Park? Or how other cops were on the take here and there? So could it be that they were too busy robbing drug dealers (not arresting them mind you) go be caught standing around a high school giving some sense of protection to the children who attended? Or the cops who were not so secretly gangbangers themselves,but I have to admit my very favorite one is the one where the cop shot and killed a commuter at the 95th Street El Station. It was obviously an accident, but dude is still dead. I could take it being an accident Joe, but what precipitated the event was so much more telling about the whole of the incident than the incident itself. Both he and his partner, who were supposed to be guarding/securing or just 'at' the station were both late for work (and not just a little late either), they were late enough that the person who they were relieving had left the station all together. Left the post unmanned because the citizens who used that station were not important enough for either them to get there on time or for the first officer to stay until he was properly releived.
Trust me, there is more than enough blame to go around. We have no legal definition of parenting. There is no standard and no way to hold anyone to a standard, but for public employees...
belmopan said:
I am amazed that people are still amazed by stories like these. This happens all day at GRADE School dismissal too. Check the Darwin School or Stowe Elementary in Logan Square. No parents and even the police shortage all contribute to this.
Wendy C said:
I work in a northern Lake County lakeshore community, in a high poverty-minority school district. Last year, the high school I work at had two such beatings the first few weeks of school. One inside the school, the other dowm the street after dismissal. Although we have cameras inside the building, four students managed to grab their victim in a camera free zone in the cafeteria. By the time security became aware of the situation, the student was laying unconscious in a pool of blood while the four attackers took turns kicking him in the head.(BTW - the four attackers came prepared with an extra change of clothes and shoes, so they could clean up afterwards and go to class) The student attacked outside of the school was set upon by over a dozen other students. Both students survived after a few days in the hospital. The last time a student died from a school related beating was about 6 years ago.
Parents and community members need to wake up to the reality of the level of violence involving our young people and the lack of emotion behind these beatings. Violence just for the sake of violence is the norm with many teenagers now. I don't have the answers, but throwing around blame and making excuses won't change anything.
Furious said:
Don't snitch...that's crazy. I know it's easy said then done, but I would snitch all day long, and would want them to come look for me. Police are not innocent either, and I read a story about this black guy in ohio...I can't quite remember what state, but he saw his best friend get killed and he went to the police. Somehow, it got out to the killer or one of the killers by the police. This guy is dead now. So, the police can't even be trusted. Corruption, hatred and racism. It's all going to come to an end...and very soon...I hope.
Creepy said:
Awful story. Sadly people have been senselessly killing people throughout history. I believe the best thing we can do is try to raise our children to respect others and punish those who can't/won't/refuse to do so by locking them up and throwing away the key. Or bring back drawing and quartering, the guillotine, breaking at the wheel, etc.
Message from Montie said:
Hi Joe the Cop, I have to apologize but I changed the URL on this blog (terrible decision considering it screwed up my visits on Google tremendously). Here is the correct link http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/message-from-montie/2009/09/innocent-bystander-derrion-albert-killed-chicago-teenagers-need-alternatives-to-violence.html for the Derrion Albert blog. Thank you for linking this though because I'm now discussing how I feel about Perry's opinion on CNN tonight to send Malia and Sashia to public school.
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