Perp , victim , or both ?

I am almost at a loss for words. I was watching the news, I think it was ch 5, to be honest I was so stunned by what I saw and heard, that the channel escapes me. A young thug goes in to a small grocery store on Prospect, pulls a gun to rob the guy behind the counter, the intended victim pulls his own gun, shoots the robber who stumbles outside and dies in the parking lot. A woman is being interviewed afterward, it was that short interview that left me stunned and almost unable to write or even utter a single word. Okay, not really that stunned, I've got plenty to say.

The woman is visibly upset, crying in fact. She tells the reporter how she ran to help the young man who was bleeding out in the parking lot. Then she says an amazing thing. " He ( the clerk) didnt have to kill him. He could have just wounded him." I sat staring at the television. This woman, heavy set, clearly poor, living in the epicenter of a Kansas City war zone, during one of the city's bloodiest seasons in recent memory, and she feels compassion for the guy who tried to rob the store. Wow, that is amazing. I doubt anyone short of Mother Theresa or the Baby Jesus could have mustered up the anguished compassion that this woman displayed. I actually backed the DVR up to hear it again, to be certain.


So I'm sitting staring at the TV , trying to wrap my head around what I've heard. One short sentence is running on a loop over and over in my mind, a small voice, just repeating the same thing over and over, in reaction to the Christ like compassionate words the woman spoke. All I could manage to say, at first just in my mind, and finally out loud, was.............Are you fucking kiddin me? He should have wounded him? Better yet, he should have just reasoned with him, or thrown gum drops and skittles at him. Maybe the group that was up the street holding a prayer vigil could have come down and prayed for the young guy. Clearly this young man was poor, underprivileged, probably no decent role models. The robbery victim should have just handed over the money, wished the young man godspeed, and hoped that he wouldn't kill him for his kindness. At the very least, the clerk could have just shot the gun out of the kids hand, like in the old Lone Ranger TV show.



Then I follow a link from TKC over to Alonzo Washington's site. He tossed out a two or three sentence comment on the story, here it is "KC Store clerk kills robber. If that's how it went down. The story sounds a little fishy. This store fought crime in a big way. Although, if you would have asked them to support anti-crime efforts in the area they would not have given you a dime." Once again I was momentarily struck mute. Seriously, The story sounds fishy, what does that even mean? A conspiracy, subterfuge, a cover up, what? The young man was trick or treating for UNICEF, the clerk shot him for no reason, slapped a throw away piece in the guys hand and shoves him out the door.


It all seems pretty cut and dried to me. Robber pulls gun, robber gets shot, robber stumbles outside, bleeds out on the sidewalk. It's a wasted life, and it's awful that someone died, but this little prick isn't the victim in all of this. I know Alonzo Washington works with the police, and some of the African American community. I realize that the woman who helped the dying would be robber was probably traumatized and in shock. So I'm not without some sympathy, that said I would be a total fraud if I ignored the giant fucking elephant in the room. It's called accountability, you know accepting responsibility for your actions. It's called laying the blame at the feet of the person responsible. I think having spent 5 years and change in prison, being accountable for my decisions, gives me some authority on the subject.

I dont care that the kid came up poor, I dont give a shit if the deck was stacked against him due to economic and racial disparity. Look, it's a fact that African Americans, in general are poorer and have less opportunity than whites. It's wrong, it's unfair, and it shouldn't be that way. And every single time some young inner city African American fucks up, someone will come to their defense, blame it on society, race, poverty, the cops, and there is a part of me that sympathizes, up to a point. But when you throw guns in to the mix, when someone gets shot, killed or harmed, my sympathy usually extends to the victim, not the gunman.



Anytime someone dies a violent death it is tragic, it's a waste, it's sad. That being said, if you decide to stick a pistol in a strangers face to take what is theirs, then you run the risk of getting killed. You automatically lose your right to play the sympathy card. My attitude has changed over the past year or so. You can go back through my archives and see the evolution. I am seeing things in a slightly different light. I am not so quick to give people a pass based on race or poverty. I'm beginning to think that maybe part of the problem is just that, a perpetual pass.

I know there will be the typical reactions from some folks who read this. There will be the racist morons who will take what I've said as an indictment upon every person of color breathing air, and there will be the knee jerk reaction from the other side of the coin, I'm just an out of touch middle aged white guy talking out of his ass about something he knows nothing about. Both reactions would be dead wrong. I dont have on blinders, no rose colored glasses here. The police dont do enough, the city government doesn't do enough, the school district doesn't do enough, white society as a whole does not do enough, and I'm sorry but the African American community in this city doesn't do enough either. Nobody is doing enough to change the way these young killers are coming up. Making excuses for them, giving them a pass and pretending that the killers are somehow victims by proxy, based on skin pigment and poverty, is complete and utter bullshit. Implying that something is fishy, tossing in a red herring just for shits and grins, also falls under the bullshit category.