Sunday, March 1, 2015

Facebook Feud Turns Fatal


There was a time when we watched our children. When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn I couldn't go around the corner without my mother having a fit. She'd send one of my older cousins to get me, then I'd be stuck on the stoop behind the gate for the rest of the day mumbling, and complaining under my breath. That is, if she let me stay outside. Even if she didn't catch me, somebody in the neighborhood would. They'd tell me to go home, and then they would tell my mother, my father, my Grandmother, or my Grandfather what I was up to. The point is, somebody always had eyes on me, and every other kid in the neighborhood. Today children don't play outside like I used to, and they have unlimited access to a world that is so far beyond the corner that they can be hard to watch. Hard, but not impossible. The fact of the matter is, where they go inside can be far more dangerous than anything that can be found around any corner. With that being said, we must monitor what they do when they park themselves in front of a screen. 

A fatal feud started when an argument on Facebook, devolved into a planned brawl at the park, and ended with a 14-year-old girl dead.

Police in Alabama say a group of girls who quarreled on Facebook decided to take their grievances to a park in Birmingham where their fight was going to be videotaped and then posted online.

After the melee ensued, two stupid teenage boys pulled out guns and started shooting at the girls. The shots killed 14-year-old Kierra'onna Rice and wounded two others.

Birmingham police arrested two suspects who were identified by witnesses. The names of the suspects, ages 17 and 19, have not been released.

Authorities believe one of the suspects was dating one of the girls who was fighting Kierra'onna.

Decades ago during the civil rights movement, thousands of non-violent protesters marched through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama so that these foolish children would have the freedom to assemble in a public park like the one in Birmingham, among other things. These protesters were often the victims of violence as they fought for their inalienable rights. Who among them could have imagined that generations to come would gather in a place that they "made free" by non-violent protest, to commit acts of violence?

PR



1 comment:

  1. "Who could have imagined. . ." Well said. I'm back to my old Ray Charles tune: "the world is in an uproar, the danger zone is everywhere."

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