I'm not going to write my usual treatise on this tragic story because it's really unnecessary. As the title of this entry suggests......will there ever be a line in the sand drawn that will act as the catalyst to galvanize our communities to make these events cease? It truly is a gift to make it to advanced age with one's faculties intact. In some respects such a feat is the flip side of the same coin-being killed as a youth before your life really begins and having your life taken as an elder, when your passing should have been far more respectful and with grace. Folks, we have to start valuing life, specifically Black life. Our detractors insist that we refrain from editorializing on these matters because somehow it's treasonous to communities of color. I think it's more accurate that the act of treason occurs when we make excuses and do nothing. For the specifics of this tragedy, check out this excerpt from the New York Times:
A Bronx teenager has been arrested on murder charges in the killing of Sadie Mitchell, a 92-year-old neighborhood fixture who was struck by a bullet not meant for her as she settled in for an evening watching television in her living room on Tuesday.
The suspect, Jamal Blair, 18, admitted during questioning by detectives that he fired a single bullet from a 9-millimeter pistol during a clash on Tuesday evening, involving about 10 people from two rival groups in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said.
The bullet went through a window in Mrs. Mitchell’s apartment, on East 224th Street, and struck her in the hip before puncturing her lungs, Mr. Kelly said. As she lay wounded, Mrs. Mitchell phoned a neighbor, Mary Fields, and said, “I’ve been shot.” Ms. Fields and her husband, John, rushed to Mrs. Mitchell’s home and found her sprawled on the living room floor, bleeding from the gunshot wound.
Mrs. Mitchell’s daughter, Shahron Williams Van Rooij, said that she felt “a small amount of comfort” after the police told her on Thursday that they had made an arrest, but that she realized there was a long judicial process ahead.
She said, “There will be no closure until I hear the words ‘guilty as charged,’ and that’s down the road.”
Ms. Van Rooij said she was buoyed by the fact that the suspect is legally an adult, rather than a child, so that the “full weight of the law” can be applied.
“The fact that this is an 18-year-old, rather than a 12-year-old — there’s a lot more clarity,” she said. She added: “I don’t care about sob stories, bad background, poverty — none of that. As an adult, you know the difference between right and wrong. You have a choice and he made the wrong choice.”
For the remainder of the Times piece, click on the link below:
18-Year-Old Charged With Murder in Death of Woman, 92
What boggles the mind, is that because of our blog's conservative leanings (which is a fragment of what this site is about), spurious criticisms of self-hatred are bandied about. But the real self-hatred that led to death of this victim is never mentioned. Time to wake up folk....time to wake up.
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