Another Son Gone Forever Leaving A Family To Grieve

Mother of slain Newark teen says fatal shooting was retaliation
by Alexi Friedman/The Star-Ledger
Monday August 17, 2009, 3:25 PM

NEWARK -- The fatal shooting of a 14-year-old Newark boy early this morning is believed to have been retribution for a previous fight the teen was involved in, the boy's mother said today.
Andrea Bryant said her son Keith Calhoun was a member of the Bloods street gang, and that she and her family had tried to steer him away from the lifestyle. Keith had been living with her for the past three years, after moving from Perth Amboy, where his father lived.

Bryant said she believes the murder was retribution for a fight Keith had gotten into with someone, but authorities are only saying it was gang-related.
The 14-year-old Newark boy was killed after being shot once in the back while standing with a group of friends at South 7th Street and 12th Avenue around 2 a.m, authorities said. After two men approached the group and briefly exchanged words, Calhoun was shot while running away from the suspects, authorities said.

One of Calhoun's friends took the teenager to UMDNJ-University Hospital, where he died from the gunshot wound, police said.

Outside of Calhoun's apartment, Anthony Turner, 14, consoled Shania Weathers, 13, as they grieved their friend's death.

Turner said Calhoun was "a good guy who didn't bother anybody."

No arrests have been made, but police are searching for two suspects, authorities said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the department's 24-hour "Crime Stoppers" anonymous tip line at 877 NWK-TIPS (877 695-8477) or NWK-GUNS (877 695-4867). Tips leading to arrests and indictments could result in cash rewards of up to $2,000 to the person who provides the information or $1,000 per gun for calls into the gun hot line.

Aristide Economopoulos contributed to this report.

Steve Harveys How To Be A Man School

A big shout-out to Stve Harvey for stepping up and providing the guidance many of our youth need in the journey towardsbecoming a man...a real man. Take a look...

Rapper Gunned Down At LA Mall

What about our sons? We must save our sons

Minority youngsters dying weekly on Chicago's streets

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- The Rev. Michael Pfleger has ordered the American flag at St. Sabina Church hung upside-down -- a historic sign of distress -- to symbolize the growing death toll among the city's youngsters.

So far this school year, 36 children and teens have been murdered -- more than one a week -- and Pfleger is among a chorus of weary Chicagoans who say the slayings aren't getting the attention they deserve.
Had 36 kids died of swine flu this year, "there would be this great influx of resources that say, 'Let's stop this, lets deal with this,' " Pfleger said.
Instead, because violence is driving the epidemic, "We're hiding it. We're ignoring it. We're denying the problems," he said.
Pfleger is not the first Chicagoan to express the sentiment. In 2007, after the city recorded 31 murdered children during the school year, Arne Duncan, then-CEO of public schools, expressed similar disappointment.

Duncan, who now serves as President Obama's secretary of education, said "all hell would break loose" if these killings took place in one of the metro area's upscale enclaves.
"If that happened to one of Chicago's wealthiest suburbs -- and God forbid it ever did -- if it was a child being shot dead every two weeks in Hinsdale or Winnetka or Barrington, do you think the status quo would remain? There's no way it would," he said.
Yet the problem has only worsened since Duncan publicly shared his observation. With about a month left in the school year, Chicago's public schools have topped the number of students slain in the 2007-2008 and 2006-2007 school years -- 27 and 31, respectively.
One of the most disturbing slayings came last week when the family of Alex Arellano found the 15-year-old's body. He had been beaten, burned and shot in the head.

"It's sad because they didn't have to torture him that way. He never did nothing wrong, never. He was a good kid. It just gets to me. It's crazy," Alex's friend Ashley Recendez said.

Indeed, police say the teen had no criminal record, no gang affiliation. His family says he was well-behaved and shy, almost fearful of strangers. They had recently taken him out of school to protect him after gang members threatened him.
He was last seen May 1, leaving his girlfriend's house. His girlfriend told his family that several young men chased him and beat him with baseball bats. She didn't know why.
The family found his brutalized body in an alley the next day, which at the time made Alex the 34th child slain this school year in the city, according to an unofficial tally kept by the Chicago Tribune.
"Why would they do this to a child that has nothing to do with nothing, and just, on top of that, brutally killing him?" asked Alex's uncle Juan Tirado.
Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis said scuffles among youth have become more violent and a conflict that 20 years ago would have warranted a pushing or wrestling match now sometimes results in gunfire.
"There's simply too many gangs, too many guns and too many drugs on the streets," he said. "We've got a problem with some of our young people are resorting to use of weapons and violence to solve any type of conflicts they may have." Watch how police try to fight gangs »
Weis said he concurred with Duncan's remarks from two years ago and bemoaned that society had become desensitized, almost to the point of acceptance, by the violence in some of America's major cities.
"That is a very sad state of affairs," he said. Watch how Chicago is struggling with the violence »
But not all officials are convinced the level of violence against children is unique to Chicago.
Mayor Richard Daley said the numbers appear worse in his city because the public school system considers teenagers students even after they drop out.

"The rest of America doesn't count them. You're a dropout forever. We don't think they're dropouts. They're students," he said.
He further said Chicago's problems are no worse than those in any other American city.
"It's all over, the same thing," he said. "You go to a large city or small city, it's all over America. It's not unique to one community or one city."
Despite Daley's remarks, CNN has learned that none of the city's 36 victims this year was a dropout.
Also, Daley's statistics on the number of youths killed in other cities don't appear to match reports from American cities.
Los Angeles, California, notorious for its gang problems, is larger than Chicago. It has reported only 23 child slayings this school year. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is about half the size of Chicago, but it has witnessed only a ninth of the child slayings: four this school year.
In 2007, Diane Latiker, founder of the community group Kids Off the Block, began a memorial on a vacant lot in Chicago. She bought 30 landscaping stones and wrote the name of a slain school-age child on each of them.
Her hopes were that the stark sight of the memorial would shock the city into action.
Today, the memorial includes 153 stones, some for children as young as 10, and there is little indication the pace is waning, as at least two children were killed since Alex Arellano's body was found Saturday.
"They come by here and they do this, and they come by here in cars and families come and cry," Latiker said of the burgeoning memorial.
Asked who was failing the kids -- police? schools? city officials? -- she replied flatly, "We all are."
Other community activists said they're at a loss to find any simple explanation. In May 2007, public outrage overflowed after the death of 16-year-old Blair Holt, an honor student and aspiring songwriter.
According to various media reports, Holt was riding a city bus when a gunfight erupted between two gang members. Holt tried to shield a young girl who was in the line of fire and was fatally shot in the stomach.
His death sparked public protests, and grieving family and activists listed a host of scapegoats: lax gun laws, insufficient policing, bad parenting. But two years later, families and activists say they're tired and discouraged by the torpid pace of change.
Lakeesha Stevens, whose son was shot as he slept in the car last year, said, "It can happen to anyone... you can be walking, you can be anywhere."
Fortunately, Martrell Stevens survived the shooting, but kindergarten proved a lot tougher for the youngster after the bullet left him partially paralyzed.
Weis said Chicago police work tirelessly to keep the violence out of the schools, and he expressed relief that the city is "providing a safe place for our young folks to learn."

However, he acknowledged that the conflicts sometimes begin in the schools and are finished off-campus. The violence will continue to be a priority for Chicago police, he said.
"I can promise you the Chicago Police Department is outraged and we will continue to work these cases with high energy and a great deal of enthusiasm," he said.

Comments: Where is Oprah or Al Sharpton regarding this matter? Why haven't they spoken out about these senseless murders especially Oprah since the murders are happening in her town of Chicago?

What about our sons? We must save our sons

Targeting The Youngest To Prevent Gang Participation

L.A. gang-prevention plan to target youngest
By Brandon Lowrey, Staff Writer
Updated: 02/25/2009 10:20:34 PM PST

Los Angeles would pump millions of dollars into the training and oversight of anti-gang groups to sway at-risk kids from joining street gangs in violent neighborhoods, the city’s anti-gang czar proposed Wednesday.

The proposed $5 million program would create a training and certification process for city-funded gang intervention workers and require them to meet frequently with kids likely to join a gang - and those kids’ parents.

“Any of our prevention programs working with young people at risk of joining gangs are going to have a significant family component,” said the Rev. Jeff Carr, the city’s anti-gang czar, in his first quarterly report to the City Council on Wednesday.

The creation of the Gang Reduction and Youth Development program would mark the first overhaul of the city’s strategy to combat gangs since the council placed it under the control of the Mayor’s Office last year. The council is set to vote on the proposal next month.

In the proposed program, $3 million would be split evenly among 12 gang-infested zones, going to local, nonprofit gang prevention and intervention groups. Two of the zones would be in the San Fernando Valley, while most of the rest would be in southern and eastern Los Angeles.

An additional $1.2 million would go to organizations outside those defined areas.

And $900,000 would fund a third-party evaluation of the plan’s success.

Two of the 12 proposed zones - in the Panorama

City and Pacoima areas - are in the San Fernando Valley.
Both zones would be served by the North Hills-based Communities in Schools, which would receive $500,000 in city and federal funds.

Officials from the organization could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The organization’s executive director, William “Blinky” Rodriguez, has been active in Valley anti-gang efforts since he lost his 16-year-old son to gang violence in 1990. He has played the role of peacekeeper among local gangs by getting gang leaders to sign peace treaties and organizing friendly competitions among rival gangs.

Communities in Schools aims to prevent gang membership and violence, and help at-risk youths in their education and search for employment, according to its Web site.

City Councilman Richard Alarc n praised the organization on Wednesday.

“They are clearly the organization in the San Fernando Valley that has the most experience working directly in intervention work,” he said.

The Valley’s Child and Family Guidance Center will receive $187,500 from the city for work outside of the GRYD zones.

Councilman Tony Cardenas, whose district includes one of the Valley’s zones, said he was pleased with the GRYD plan’s increased focus on preventing kids from joining gangs and intervening before they get arrested.

“I think interventionists are a very underutilized part of the solution,” Cardenas said.

“We can’t arrest our way out of the problem,” Cardenas added, echoing a remark often uttered often by Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton. “There are other legs to the stool.”

The program will replace the Bridges program, which was administered by the Community Development Department until the Mayor’s Office took it over in July.

Carr said the greatest differences between the Gang Reduction and Youth Development program and its predecessor would be in oversight and focus.

Carr has proposed a $900,000 contract with the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social policy research firm, to measure the program’s effectiveness.

The program would focus on more intensive work and more carefully selected kids. In addition, the city would create an ongoing training process to ensure consistency and quality among gang intervention workers.

The workers, many of whom are reformed gang members, would be required to meet at least three times a week with each at-risk youth and at least once a month with their parents. The program would reach an estimated 2,600 kids - twice the number reached by the Bridges program, Carr said.

City Controller Laura Chick will release a report today examining the city’s gang policy since last February, when she released a gang prevention “blueprint” and recommended that gang programs be consolidated under the Mayor’s Office.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ray Cortines and Alarc n will also unveil an unrelated program today to launch after-school youth centers at five middle schools in gang-affected areas to keep kids off of the streets.

Carr said that if the program reaches the right kids at the right time - around middle-school - it could go a long way toward transforming even the roughest places.

“I think it’s important for us to remember one simple thing: All across this city, even in the toughest neighborhoods, … 85 percent of the kids who live in those neighborhoods will never join a gang,” Carr said. “They want to grow up safe and healthy. They want a good job. They want a family.

They want a safe place to live.”

What about our sons? We must save our sons

You Can't Hate The Root Of A Tree

Moments From Black History




What About Our Sons? We Must Save Our Sons

Okland Police Kill Unarmed Black Man

What About Our Sons? We Must Save Our Sons