Birthday Party Gone Wrong

Last Saturday, there was a tragedy on my block and two teenage lives were lost. One shot the other at a birthday party and a life was lost to gunfire, another to prison.

I’ll never forget the sounds of the teenagers wailing. And the kids running everywhere. It was chaos. We’ve been reeling in this normally quiet neighborhood. These are my thoughts:

1. You can never start talking to kids soon enough about the company they keep. As soon as the sun rose, I called the kids I mentor and made plans to spend the afternoon with them. Even the 6 year old and I had a serious talk about picking good friends. And the girls made him admit that he’d already made some bad choices! We'll turn that around!

2. The grandmother (my neighbor) that was throwing the birthday party for her granddaughter should be charged. All the people on the online forums are speaking badly of the shooter’s parents. But I blame the adult that was throwing an out-of-control party for teenagers. She told Fox News she wants to have another party for her granddaughter, but this time, she will take pictures of everyone first, and call the police ahead of time. What?!

3. Both the shooter and the victim had criminal records at the age of 11. What have we done as a community/school system/church/mentors to help these boys since then? Things shouldn’t have ended this way. There were warning signs.

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