LAWLESSNESS TWO: AND NOW THIS

He was only thirteen. He was not from this area. He was visiting his great grandmother who is dying from cancer. He was standing on the street on Saturday morning. They were all standing outside talking. A car pulled up and the occupants said *what's up?* and started firing. The child's mother is in the hospital. She can barely understand that her son is dead. She has a shattered arm. The occupants of the car fired on the crowd, shooting the child several times. He died. Family members are devistated because their straight A child is dead. There are people who know who did this. But they won't tell. They are scared. Of being dead, too. Telling the truth, making life sacred, is now *snitching*. The men who commit these crimes are willing to kill anyone who *snitches*. To them life is not sacred. They are lawless because they were never given laws. They have invented *laws*. Street laws. Whatever *laws* they live by, guide their lives by. There was no robbery. No drug deal gone wrong. No 30 year community grievence, forgotten down through the years but kept up by the children in the community. That happens. But not in this case. Maybe they did it for a gang initiation. Maybe it was just for fun. But it certainly was because they have nothing better to do in their lives. Nothing beyond shooting someone else's child dead. Once again, it's not the lawless of the streets, but the lawlessness that people bring from their homes.