It's Just Not Right

As you know, McStudly and I were out of town all last week. We had a great time with the family, but came home to some very disconcerting news.

We received a phone call from a friend and neighbor Saturday afternoon while we waited for our plane to begin boarding. Apparently, our road had been blocked off and something had happened at the end of our street... literally.


Here's the story: http://tinyurl.com/nt38lo


What makes me so angry about the incident? I'll tell you.

It was Saturday afternoon. The pool was open. People were outside because it was such a nice day. Now will someone PLEASE explain to me how this happened and no one... not ONE person... stepped in? No one screamed anything at the "boys" that were doing this. No one ran up or tried to stop what was happening. Not a ONE of them.


This happened in the middle of the street. Not on a sidewalk behind a tree or parked car, not behind a row of town homes or in a wooded area - in the middle of the STREET! And this isn't a road-little-travelled. It is the only road in and out of 95% of these homes. The pool is like 100 yards away.


And yet a 14-year-old boy was BEAT to death? I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it takes more than to kicks to the ribs to kill someone this way. What I mean is that this isn't something that would've happened in a 30-second span of time. It would've taken a few minutes, right?

Someone PLEASE tell me how. I'm sure that police would rather you leave the breaking up of the situation up to them, but how can we sit by and just let this kind of stuff happen?


We live in a quite neighborhood. The most trouble we have is people jumping the fence at night to get to the pool, or maybe someone having had too much to drink at the apartments down the street and getting loud. My town isn't perfect and yes things happen everywhere.

But I'm not worried for my safety now. I'm not concerned about the crime rate rising. I'm NOT thinking about how I need to get out of this area. No. This was a planned attack. Teenage boys PLANNED to find this kid and BEAT him to a pulp. And because people are so concerned with themselves and too stuck up their own butts to do anything, they succeeded in killing this boy.


SOMEONE please explain that to me. How on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, in a neighborhood where there's always at least 2 people walking their dogs along this street and tons of children playing along the grass that lines it and too many cars to count driving alone this road... how were these teenagers able to find a window of a few minutes where they could beat the crap out of a 14-year-old boy who was riding his bicycle?


Are we that self-absorbed?

Thank GOD for the people who were there after they left. Thank the LORD that someone finally DID call 911. But I can't help but wonder what could have happened if someone has stepped in or even just yelled at the kids.

Seriously.

Someone else would be dead as well. That's possible. Someone could've been beaten worse than the boy and he would've lived. Yes - likely, even. OR they would've spooked and left it alone. Also another possibility.


But he was 14 years old!! He wasn't some 35-year-old man that had lived a good amount of his life. He was only 14! He didn't deserve to be left to fend for himself.



I don't know what happened to cause this. I don't know what petty little thing drove these 5-7 other teenage boys to think it necessary to jump him and beat his head in. And honestly? None of us probably ever will. But what gets me is that they succeeded.

Any punishment that gets dished out won't bring that little boy back. These boys got what they wanted. They got what they were after. And I hope that finding that out causes them to realize that it never really was worth it after all. I hope that they feel remorseful and seek forgiveness and never look back at that kind of a life again. I hope that it doesn't haunt them for their entire life. I hope they can heal and that this boy's family can heal and that we can prevent this from every happening again... and least in our own neighborhood.


But I'm just sad, more than anything, that more could've been done and it wasn't.


So you may get a black eye. So you may get a broken rib. SO WHAT! This boy died... and the least we could've done would've been to make a little noise.

Letting this stuff go is what make a good neighborhood go bad. If we don't stand up for our home... for our town... who will?





Am I the only one that feels this way? What if it were your neighborhood. What if it was at the end of your street. What would you have done - be honest.