The skanner., March 28, 2018, Page 8, Image 8

Page 8 The Skanner March 28, 2018
News
A School Shooting Every Week, One-By-One
By Alexa Imani Spencer,
Howard University News
Service
This is the first of a two-
part series on the murders
of teenagers throughout
the U.S. While the nation’s
attention is focused on
deaths in school shoot-
ings, the equivalent num-
ber of teenage murders
place every week, mostly
in African-American and
Hispanic neighborhoods
with little fanfare or pub-
lic debate.
WASHINGTON -- As
2017 came to an end in
the nation’s capital, the
good news of the preced-
ing 365 days included the
city’s declining crime
rate. The mayor and oth-
er city officials proudly
pointed to a 15 percent
drop in homicides for the
previous year and a 22
percent decline for all vi-
olent crime for the same
period.
Sentiments
quickly
changed 30 days later.
Within the first month
of the new year, four
teenagers had been mur-
dered — Paris DeShawn
Brown, 19; Davon Fisher,
17; Stephen Slaughter,
14; and Taiyania Aaliyah
Thompson, 16.
America is mourning
the deaths of 17 killed
in a Florida high school
shooting, one of the dead-
liest in history. Their
deaths have prompted
a national conversation
about gun control and
how to keep children safe
in schools. Lost in the de-
bate is the fact that a sim-
ilar number of children
and teenagers, most of
them African American
and Latino, are shot and
killed every week. Ac-
cording to statista.com,
1,278 people between the
ages of 13 and 19 were
killed in 2015, on average
more than 20 each week.
Instead of victims of
mass murders, they are
single, solitary deaths.
The examples are in cit-
ies across America. In
Los Angeles, 15-year-old
“
tion’s children daily.
Paris DeShawn Brown
Paris DeShawn Brown,
19, was the first Wash-
ington resident to die
of gun violence in 2018.
His body was found life-
less January 10 at the 400
block of Skyland Place in
Southeast Washington.
He had been shot multi-
ple times, police said. So
far, no one has been ar-
rested.
Brown lived in Ward
8, one of D.C.’s poorest
communities.
Unem-
He would say that he be-
lieved God put him through
certain situations to learn a
lesson
Miracle McGowan was
killed January 12 in a
drive-by shooting as she
and three other people
sat in a car in the Flor-
ence-Firestone neighbor-
hood.
In Dallas, Natalie Her-
nandez, 14, killed Febru-
ary 12, was fatally shot
and a 16-year-old boy was
wounded as they and two
other W.W. Samuell High
School students were sit-
ting in a car in a city park.
In Atlanta, 17-year-old
Ga’Quavious Williams
was found dead in Feb-
ruary outside of a home
with a gunshot wound in
the back.
Four murders of teen-
agers in one month is an
oddity for D.C., and a re-
minder of gun violence
taking the lives of the na-
50 th COMMEMORATION OF
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
ASSASSINATION
“Marching Toward The Beloved Community:
For Justice, Peace And Elimination Of Poverty”
Join us Wednesday, April 04, 2018 at 5:00 PM
(Family Oriented, Non-Violent March)
5:00 PM Gather at the Japanese American
Historical Plaza (NW Naito Parkway at
Davis St.)
5:30 PM March across the Steel Bridge to MLK
statue (at MLK Blvd. & NE Holladay St.)
6:30 PM Rally at MLK Blvd. & NE Holladay
Sponsored by the: Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition
For Justice And Police Reform
Co-Sponsored by: Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.
The Beloved Community and the NAACP
ployment consistently
runs near 12 percent, ac-
cording to The Office of
Labor Market Research
and information. Close
friends knew Brown as
“Paco.” They said short-
ly before he was shot, he
had been released after
three years in custody as
a juvenile.
Many, including child-
hood companion and
classmate, Larry Jones,
16, remember him as
someone who naturally
stood out. Jones remem-
bers what it was like
when he was released
from detention.
“Everything about him
was more different than
any other male that I had
ever met,” Jones said.
The two became friends
around the age of four,
he said. When Brown
came home, Jones said,
he immediately enrolled
in Thurgood Marshall
Academy, a law-themed
charter school located in
Anacostia where Jones
and Brown were reunit-
ed as classmates.
Jones said he saw a
change in Brown.
“He was very spiri-
tual...that was the first
thing I noticed,” Brown
said. “He would say that
he believed God put him
through certain situa-
tions to learn a lesson.
Another thing I noticed
is that he was really fed
up with the way society
ran.”
While attending Thur-
good Marshall Academy,
Brown began to develop
a newfound social and
political consciousness,
said Lena Barker, 32, a li-
brarian at the the school
for the past five years.
Brown frequented the
library as a place of ref-
uge, she said.
“Paris, rather than be-
ing bogged down by that
[academic] pressure, I
think he learned how
to embrace difficulty,”
Barker said. “But he also
learned that there was a
space that he could come
to and let that stuff roll
off of his back a little bit,
and I think that was here,
in the library, for him.”
Brown had an inter-
est in African-Ameri-
can Studies. So, Barker
gave him books to read,
including David Walk-
er’s Appeal, The Willie
Lynch Letter, and Be-
tween The World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Everyday he sat in the
same black rolling chair,
Barker recalled, where
he read and wrote in
such a “dignified way.”
“Paris had a presence,
a very special presence
that I think is so hard for
young black men to tap
PHOTO COURTESY OF LARRY JONES
Gun Violence in America: Part 1
Paris DeShawn Brown (right) embracing with his sister, spent three
years in juvenile custody earlier. Friends said he had found a spiritual
peace upon release.
into,” Barker said. “Even
in the way he would just
sit in the library and just
talked to me. He had no
issues with being vulner-
able and open.”
Over time, he shared
with her some of his
writings, his poetry and
his music, including one
of his most recent mix-
tapes, “Dreams of Gold.”
“I’d like to imagine that
record is about what he
wanted for himself and
his family,” Barker said,
“and I don’t mean gold in
a monetary kind of way,
but I mean something
bright and beautiful and
valuable.”
Davon Fisher
Just two days after
Brown was murdered,
Davon Fisher, 16, was
shot and killed near the
corner of Riggs Road
and Nicholson Street
in Northeast Washing-
ton. He and two males
were found wounded in
a basement. A male sus-
pect entered and opened
fire. All three victims
were rushed to the hos-
pital. Fisher was the only
one that didn’t survive.
Fisher was raised in
the area surrounding
the crime scene. His
childhood home was just
blocks away on the same
street. Growing up, he
collected
nicknames,
“Snacks,” “Chucky,” and
“Fat Glo.” He answered to
them all.
Harrison Jackson, 26,
watched Fisher grow up.
From his front porch, he
remembers Davon as a
“good child” that had a
natural talent for sports.
Each day after school,
Jackson recalled, Davon
would rush to the nearby
football field to practice.
The sport became an out-
let. Once he stopped play-
ing, Jackson noticed a
“switch” in his behavior.
“I would say when he
got into the 8th grade,
about to go to the 9th
grade, that’s when his
transition came,” Jackson
said.
He started skipping
school. His grades began
to slide. Jackson said he
tried to turn him around.
“Every time I saw him,
I tried to put positive
thoughts into his head,”
he said.
One of the last conver-
sations that Jackson had
with Fisher was about
life choices. Other young
men were present. Jack-
son encouraged them to
go to school and seek suc-
cess.
“I’m just trying to
get my lil homies from
around here to look at
life way different,” Jack-
son said. “You can still
be the coolest kid in the
world, if you’re putting
positive energy into the
world, because that’s
what you’re going to get
back out of the world.”
Robert Nickens, 45,
was Fisher’s coach for
a while. Nickens has
served as a youth basket-
ball coach in D.C.’s Ward
4 for twenty-five years.
He does it, he said, “to
give them an opportu-
nity to do better in their
lives.”
Read the rest of this story at
TheSkanner.com