The Murder of Derrion Albert: Sick with Grief and Anger

We’ve lamented before on the senseless and stupefying rise in violence and deaths of Chicago children. At a certain point it becomes mind-numbing and it’s hard to feel anything.

But then another young brother with great potential and focus is slaughtered. Not by a hail of bullets, but viciously beaten and stomped to death as if he was less than human.

USA Today describes the beating:

Albert, 16, was walking home from school Thursday when he was beaten to death in a fight between two rival groups outside a community center. Four teens were charged Monday in the slaying. Police identified them with the help of the cellphone video taken by an unidentified witness. The video was provided to a TV station and given to police.
…..
The brawl was precipitated by a shooting outside the school on Thursday morning, prosecutors said. A 15-year-old boy was arrested after police alleged he opened fire from his bicycle on a 17-year-old boy, who was not hurt. That incident stemmed from tensions between students who live in Altgeld Gardens, a public housing project, and others who live in an area known as the “Ville.”

Albert was “a bystander” to a fight later Thursday between the groups and didn’t belong to either, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Jodi Peterson said in court. Carson and another person from the Ville approached him, she said. Carson hit Albert in the head with a railroad tie. The other person punched him in the face, prosecutors say. Albert fell, unconscious, prosecutors said, and when he regained consciousness, he moved away and tried to stand. He was surrounded by five Altgeld Gardens residents. Riley hit him with a railroad tie and Shannon stomped on his head, Peterson said.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired! Who needs the Ku Klux Klan or “the man” when we’re doing the work for them!!

Where is the natural respect of human life? How does someone beat another to death? Why has the situation been allowed to escalate to such a level that this type of behavior doesn’t make you physically ill?

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