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Remembering San Bernardino's lost lives |
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Thursday, 20 November 2008 |
By Cheryl Brown --
November 13, 2004, another child was dead in San Bernardino, shot by gang members while she was eating dinner.
The city seemed to be complacent about it. Parents wailed, officials rung their hands, and Steve
Lambert, the new Sun Newspaper Editor was appalled. He could not believe there was no outrage, so he held a meeting to bring attention to children killing children in the city.
In a 21 month period 18 youth lost their lives to gun violence.
Out of the death of Mynisha Crenshaw and the shooting of her sister Jaynita Williams, came several milestones: an organization called Mynisha’s Circle, a law passed by Congress and authored by U. S. Senator Barbara Boxer (to give cities and municipalities funds and authority to toughen the sentences for people who commit crimes against children), and a yearly
recognition of Mynisha and other murdered children in the city.
About 150 people gathered last Thursday at San Bernardino City Hall for a candlelight vigil that
included city leaders, officials, citizens and families.
One speaker, the mother of Melanie Miers, who was killed in a drive by shooting, said she was tired of these remembrances that offer recommitment, she said the city needs to do something to help the children so they will not want to kill each other. “No more yearly commitments.
"Make daily commitments!” said Lucy. She was followed by youth from the ICUC who
said the city is not seriously working on the violence problem.
Rocio Ruiz and Ivan Aguayo said that the city needs to provide more resources and that their survey found that youth don’t feel safe. “We realize we have to work together to reduce violence, but the city needs to have culture, parks are allowed to crumble, and the city jobs go to outsiders.
"It is depressing that even the Cinema Star movie theater is closed down. How many more lives do we lose before someone will listen?” said Aguayo.
Gary Madden, director of the 211 Information system told the young people they don’t have to do it alone. He pointed to the reduction in lives lost and said that 18 was reduced to 6, but it is still too many.
Rabbi Hillel Cohn calls the murder of a child senseless but said the whole community hurts and the hurt doesn’t go away. “We can’t bring the young lives back, we can’t erase the hurt but we can do more than we have been doing. We need to call on our leaders to measure their words.”
Mynisha’s death was the catalyst but all of the young people: Jarret Mitchell, Anthony Ramirez,
Melanie Miers, Charles Marshal, Cecil Scott, Travon Williams who lost their lives shed light on the senseless killings that plague the city. Our goal is to have zero children murdered.
Rev. Reggie Beamon with tears streaming down one cheek said, “If our city is going to be great again it will be because of the investment in our youth” he said as he called up Dejon, the brother of Charles Marshal the city’s most recent murder, “we have to improve our community.”
His hurt on display he lamented how much he missed his fun loving brother, who always tried
to keep him on the right path.
Beamon told the adults in the crowd, “don’t just drive by when you see kids skipping school, or
fighting, call someone if you don’t want to do it yourself. He asked the question before the lighting of the candle, “when is enough going to be enough for you?”
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