Having worked at a high school in the inner city for two years, I have grown almost too accustomed to the notion that many of the students I see and converse with on a daily basis are involved, to a lesser or a greater extent, with street gangs.
Although I know this, and although I am well aware of the malicious responsibilities that go hand in hand with gang initiation, I can honestly say I have remained in a sort of “innocence is bliss” mentality up until today. After all, I play ping pong with these kids every day after school!
Well, today one of our students was shot after school, right in front of school.
Why?
Because of a rival gang.
When will it end?
This event brought back into my consciousness all the frustration I have towards the entire inner city/poverty/race relations/gang violence jumbled up issue that goes year after year with no promising solution in sight.
As a crisis counselor working in this situation I would have expected to have students express feelings of hopelessness. However, this is almost never the case. More often than not my students will confidently sum up the situation by saying,
This is how things are, this how things have always been, this how things will always be.
When faced with this truth of a seemingly inescapable cycle of poverty-fueled gang violence it is all too easy to lose perspective and to forget that change does eventually come. However, for change to come the right solutions must be put in place. The current solution – locking up gang members in prison – does not work. The prison system as it is now acts more as a training ground for gangs. In fact, many of the higher officials in gangs give their biddings from within the confines of a jail cell.
Let’s be honest: We don’t have any idea what to do to solve this situation, but we know something different most certainly needs to be done, and done fast.
After all, the longer we wait to find an effective solution to this problem, the longer we will have to live with the fact that there are home-grown underground armies (gangs) expanding at an alarming rate across the United States of America while we fight a global war against international underground armies (terrorists).
Image Used in this Post
static in my head, lines blur red image courtesy of Flickr user r.marin published under the CC license.
18 Comments
Hearing stories like this it reminds me how fortunate I am to have not been subjected to this kind violence growing up. It is unspeakably saddening to think of those who have. In addition to this the increase in these gangs will soon reach every corner of the United States. I don’t blame it on music, tv, video games, or movies. The problem is so all encompassing I think the scariest thing is there isn’t a tangible cause. If there was then maybe we could find a cure. I am certainly not an expert in anyway but much like drug abuse if you want to get rid of it you must get rid of pain first.
Amazing. Thanks for sharing.
Andrew, can you keep us posted regarding how the students, faculty, and administration move on from this? I wonder if such an atrocity is so unfortunately commonplace that everyone moves on as though a tragedy like this never happened.
Well the boy got lucky and he ended up only being shot in the leg.
The mood at school is no different than any other day, except everyone is talking about what happened.
The big concern now is that the rival gang may want to finish the botched job. A confrontation is inevitable, but hopefully it happens off school premises where there’s much less chance of bystander injury.
At least the boy is still alive, but like you said retaliation or a second attempt seems inevitable. Has security or police intervention beefed up since the shooting?
There’s a tad bit more police presence.
The vultures known as the news networks and Governor Corzine just came by the school for a photo op.
Corzine, I thought that fool was still on his secretive and announced jaunt over to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yeah that’s what I thought to. I’m only reporting what our security guard is telling us.
Gangbanger=Douchebag
We actually had a gang shooting in my apartment complex a couple nights ago. I want to move.
I have no respect for gangs. I have known people in gangs and I have seen what gangs do. None of it is good in any way shape form or fashion.
Jim,
As a father that has to scare the crap out of you. There is no way you want The Dude exposed to that kind of environment. Sadly though gang presence is reaching farther and farther into suburbia. Fewer and fewer safe places are left and most Americans are being priced out of safe areas. A complete shame.
UPDATE:
It turns out three students were actually shot. Two remain in the hospital in critical condition, one was shot in the leg and actually came to school today.
The students who were shot were used as a lesson for somebody else who had “jumped” a rival gang member. This somebody else is currently hiding at home to avoid being found.
I’ll keep updating what happens when i hear more.
** It was Codey, not Corzine who came to the school. Corzine is still overseas.
I think gun control is an issue that gets spurts of attention politically and in the media. These gang confrontations are only amplified by guns. Releasing guns into mainstream culture has been entropic. Who’s to blame? Guns nuts(who founded our country), capitalism? I don’t want to believe its too late to remove the gun factor in culture. but what the f*#@? This is Orange, NJ, nobody’s hunting. For wildlife anyway.
Jack, while your point is well noted, will increased gun control keep black market firearms out of violent hands? All that regulation might only remove guns from the hands of the many individuals who would respectfully and properly maintain and handle a weapon.
I think many more would be open to removing guns from the equation if there was reason to believe criminals and gang member alike would keep from getting their hands on guns. Personally I just do not see that happening
Either way, our Constitution and the unending violence in our cities has put us in a very difficult situation.
agreed, america is its own universe. our murder rate trumps most other nations, and its due to guns. Why in England do police either not carry a gun or have it concealed? So that thieves(which are inherent in our world) don’t carry deadly weapons to counter them. And gun violence is in a different echelon, like a much lower one.
Meanwhile those who respectfully and properly maintain hand-cannons know they are protecting themselves from gun-carrying burglars. And innocent people get caught in between.
Guns just suck. Even our law enforcement don’t always keep them in check(ie:Oakland, CA last weekend, or Sean Bell, etc.)
Valid points indeed.
and as a note, obviously gun-control laws haven’t really worked. It just makes gun-people more angry, and certainly doesn’t hinder the availability of guns(as you said, greg m).
At the root of this issue is drug dealing, and the sick money it brings in to street gangs. If anything needs to change it would be the legality of certain drugs.
After all, capitalism leads to a certain percentage of the population being poor and needing alternative methods to compete.
Selling illegal products on territory that is protected by your street gang is actually a very effective, though very dangerous, way of amassing large amounts of money in a short amount of time.
Quick cash is probably the biggest factors that tempts young adults to join gangs. But what they don’t all realize is that to rise up in the ranks and make the big bucks you need to spend a good number of years as a foot soldier following orders that in the worst cases involve murder.
Let’s have some bullet control. You can have as many guns as you want and one box of bullets a year. Let’s see how many innocent bystanders there are then.
The Godfather wouldn’t have allowed this to happen