Nice tribute. At the end of the day an unarmed 17 yr with no criminal record was gunned down and killed for doing nothing wrong, bar being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being unfortunate enough to come across a trigger happy wanna be cop.
Good to see this tragic event is being remembered.
Seems like no one gives a shit about these tragic events.
The number of homicides in Montgomery is up dramatically from years past, and we've uncovered some disturbing similarities many of these killings share.
So far in 2013 someone in Montgomery is killed by someone else once every six days.
At this rate we'll surpass the number of killings in all of last year by early July. While some of these killings have been random acts, most of them have something in common.
Montgomery has seen 22 homicides in less than 5 months. There were 32 in all of 2012.
"It's no secret that it's black males who are dying. Ninety percent of the murders in Montgomery," says Alabama State University psychologist Dr. Earnest Blackshear, who has been working with police to try and find ways to stop a trend that's been in place for many years.
Of the 22 homicides so far this year, 13 of the 22 have involved a black male suspect killing another black male. In the six unsolved cases, all the victims are black. In most all of the cases, the victim and the suspect knew each other.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the leading cause of death of black men aged 15 to 34 is homicide at the hands of another black man.
"How long do we have to continue to wait before we say it's a black on black homicide issue? We've taken the guns. We've blown up the housing projects. We have to do something different," says Dr. Blackshear.
But has Montgomery's black leadership bought in? In a recent column in the Montgomery Advertiser, retired Magistrate Judge Vanzetta McPherson said the city's black leaders aren't doing enough.
"If African-Americans were being senselessly gunned to death by persons of other ethnicities, the black community would be engaged in weekly, in not daily, protests," she wrote. "Our leaders may place a higher premium on remaining in favor with constituents and thereby remaining in office."
