Enough!

I was in my late 30s when I finally stopped being an automatically suspicious person. Still, my instincts tell me that the best way to encounter armed authorities, particularly after dark is with my driver's side window down and my hands  firmly gripping the steering wheel at 10 and two.

The Trayvon Martin case saddens me, angers me, and troubles me.  A 17-year-old child, dressed like anybody's 12 to 22 year-old child walks toward his house through a subdivision where his parents pay taxes and a mortgage wound up dead.

The 9-1-1 tapes are chilling. You hear a young boy screaming in terror. He is 140 pounds, with a soda and some candy in his pockets and he is walking home. Someone decided he looked like he was up to something and despite appeals from a 9-1-1 operator, chose to go after him in an S-U-V.

This citizen watchman not only decided to confront this child, but felt somehow he had authority to try and grab him, hold him and detain him not far from the presumed safety of his parents home.

We have to assume a struggle took place. Any of us who are parents would expect our children to run from danger in the interest of their survival., When he couldn't get away, he begged the darkness for help. Perhaps he tried in vain to protect himself with defensive maneuvers, even as his child's voice wailed out in terror.

If you have not heard the 9-1-1 tapes from this sordid, sick incident. I encourage you to listen: Trayvon Martin 9-1-1 Call



 They are the sounds of distant witnesses who at least had the human decency to call police. They are also the tragic screams of anybody's child. If you listen you may hear the utterances of disbelief from a boy who could not understand why walking home became the final seconds of his too short life.

Some would try to desensitize a mother's pain by suggesting that this is just another case of street violence. While it is true that young people are die everyday in our cities and some of our suburbs, there are no indications that this was about drugs, or girls or labeled shoes or jewelry or leather jackets or gang violence.

This was not a domey, or a case of "Addidas Up," as i have heard law enforcement officers describe incidents of domestic violence or neighborhood beefs repeatedly over the years.

This was just a kid, headed home, who allegedly ran into the wrong wannabe vigilante. Neighborhood watch people simply watch, they do not drive up as judges, juries and executioners and blow away their neighbors' children.

We have allowed ourselves to be desensitized to so much of the violence and other problems occurring in our own backyards. If our hearts become cold to any parents' pain, then who are we? Could we meet our God with such apathy for the worth of the living and claim for a moment we lived our lives for good?