AJC: Fearful relatives hold vigil for slain teen
Clutching a picture of his dead cousin, Mike Hill worried what might happen next.
“There’s a lot of people who want to retaliate, and there’s a lot of people trying to talk them out of doing that,” said Hill, 24. “Nick wasn’t about that. He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was killed for nothing.”
About 100 people attended a sunset vigil Wednesday in honor of Hill’s 16-year-old cousin Nick, shot in the head Sunday night by gang members outside his southwest Atlanta apartment. [Family members have asked that their surnames not be published for fear of retribution.]
Nick’s half-brother, Andre, 15, remains in critical condition at Grady Memorial Hospital. A third teen, not a family member, was shot in the ankle. He was released Wednesday from Atlanta Medical Center.
Atlanta police have yet to make any arrests in the shootings at Hank Aaron Drive and Haygood Avenue in Peoplestown. The shooting scene was the site of Wednesday’s vigil.
“Lord, I’m sick of it, and I’m tired of seeing it,” said the Rev. Frank Jones, a local pastor. “We’ve got to quit turning on each other. We are human beings, we are loved, and we are God’s creatures.”
Peoplestown community groups have set up a reward fund totaling $7,000 for anyone with information leading to the arrest of Nick’s killers.
The Carver High School sophomore was active in ROTC and enjoyed working with computers.
“He loved to travel. We were always going somewhere,” remembered his grandmother, Denise Martin, 51, of Decatur. “My daughter was asking me, ‘How are we going to make it? What are we going to do?’”
Many in Peoplestown were asking the same question Wednesday night.
“You can’t make sense out of nonsense,” said Rick McDevitt, president of the Georgia Alliance for Children. “These kids weren’t thugs. They weren’t involved in any illegal activities. They were just walking home.”
3 comments:
Its a damn shame when you can't walk your own neighborhood without having to worry about something like this occurring. Then its even worse that you cannot release your last name for fear of retaliation by the wrong doers.
RiPPa:
This is nothing. These type of circumstances are going on all around the county.
This is why I have framed these scenarios into being a "Civil Rights Violation" which are presently going unchecked and under the radar.
Sadly, in the case of the Black establishment - if there is no cross racial conflict it cannot be considered a "Civil Rights suppression".
Yet there are the very same elements of:
* Terrorist Intimidation
* Taking the Law Into your Own Hands
* Witness Tampering
* Unchecked Killing Of Black People
Only when the Black Community rolls past the Black Establishment and makes use of the very same machinations that proved to be effective against the onslaught of White terrorist thugs will this situation with Black terrorist thugs change.
This is why I have framed these scenarios into being a "Civil Rights Violation" which are presently going unchecked and under the radar.
That is a very profound statement. I'll be honest and say that I never viewed it as a "Civil Rights Violation". Upon thinking about it, after you said that, it sure is.
You're right, there's a need for some honesty among our collective. Or dare I say a shift in paradigm.
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