A student at my school was murdered last night.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I can’t quite express the rage that I have toward the three teens who pushed this boy into traffic, or my rage toward the two drivers who did not stop after hitting him.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2009/11/04/20091104phx-teenkilled04-ON.html

This isn’t the best venting of rage, but I’m just disgusted with humanity right now. This was not one of my students; he was a sophomore, while I teach juniors. Still, it makes me angry and sad that one of “my kids” was killed senselessly.

2

Since we don’t actually know if he was pushed, or if the drivers who did not stop saw or felt the boy, I feel it only necessary to point out that your outrage may be misplaced.

Of course, I am aware that what you’re feeling right now is in no way controllable or rational, so I’ll simply hope that the perpetrators, if any, are brought to justice.

3

I’m so sorry. That is horrible.

4

:frowning: I’m sorry to hear that happened.
This is actually one of my greatest fears while walking home at night. I have to cross several streets with traffic and all, and I always feel a bit weird just standing by the curb waiting for the light to change. I constantly look over my shoulder because I worry about this very sort of thing, but I always try to say that no one would do this sort of thing…

:frowning:
Again, my condolences for losing one of your own…

5

I’m so sorry. My first teaching job, we had two student deaths in two years - one drug overdose and one suicide. This was at a high school with about a hundred kids. The whole campus was catatonic both times.

It’s awful, the feeling of helplessness. That poor boy. I hope you can be there for his friends and family.

6

I’m moving this thread from The BBQ Pit to Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share.

Gfactor
Pit Moderator

7

How do you “not notice” something like that? A small shepherd’s dog once commited suicide by running into my father’s car and I can assure you we felt it. I’m talking about something the size of a terrier.

8

He was hit by three cars, according to the article. Presumably one of them hit him hard, but the other two might just have run over a foot or a hand.

9

What that article fails to mention is that the 15 year-old called his family right before he was killed and told them someone was after him (saw it on the news).

Sorry, wmulax93, I share your outrage as well, though I’m sure you feel it more intensely than I do.

10

Here’s a more thorough article on the incident.

11

Objection withdrawn. Jesus fuck.

12

Our campus feels strange right now. I can’t say any more than that, as my identity is pretty easy to find out now. Tomorrow, we’re having a fundraiser to help Francisco’s family pay for the funeral.

13

Damn, that’s just horrible, poor Francisco, and his family. This is so senseless. I hope your school can find some way to pull together and help the kids get through it without despair.

14

Toss this into the pile of stories along with the gang rape in Oakland of a 15 year old girl leaving a school dance.

15

Just to update, our fundraiser on Friday was a dress-down day (our students are normally in uniform), in which we charged the kids $3 to come out-of-uniform. Many, many kids gave more than the required $3, and we raised $1,500 for Francisco’s family. Two clubs are holding carwash fundraisers this weekend to raise more money for the family. We’re a Title I (high-poverty) school, so seeing this kind of support from the students is amazing, and makes me feel a whole lot better about humanity.

16

Interestingly enough the kid didn’t call 911 to tell the cops something was wrong.

I have found in Chicago, at least, a lot of times, these “innocent” kids are not necessarily so innocent.

Now I’m not justifying murder in anyway. No on deserves to be killed, period. And I’d like to re-emphasize that point, no one deserved what he got.

But what I’m trying to point out is a lot of these “my child didn’t do nothing,” is only remotely true. If your child isn’t in a gang but spends 95% of his free time hanging with gangbangers (and you don’t have to be in the gang to hang with them), he’s gonna run into trouble.

I’ve known parents, totally cluess when the son is injured, “But he wasn’t in no gang, he was a nice boy.” Yet this kid as Nike shoes, new leather coat, etc etc and you’re on food stamps. Where did he get that stuff? No one “SEEMS” to be able to answer that.

So you have no money, your kids has new expensive clothes and you don’t even bother to question who’s giving it to him or what he has to do to get it?

Now again, I am in no way trying to put any blame on this kid who was killed. He didn’t deserve this, but you have to watch your kids and who they’re hanging with and what they’re doing.

The one thing I learned when I worked for a bail bonds office (as just the office clerk guy) was how charming bad people can be. In fact bad people are very nice, until the first thing goes wrong, then you do NOT want to be with 100 miles of them.

If someone was following this kid and he was scared, why did he not call 911?

Was he doing something he shouldn’t have? Too often we get lost on the “It doesn’t matter what the kid was doing he doesn’t derserve to die.” I agree, totally. But in order to prevent this from happening, we need to know what is going on. The public needs to know as well. If kids are buying drugs in a park and the cops can’t release such info because the kids are all under 16, that park is drug infested but we as adults will never know.

I can’t tell you the number of teachers and parents and friends, who will say “My kid wasn’t doing drugs he wasn’t buying drugs.” True, he was just hanging around druggies 24/7. As the Bible says “Bad associations spoil good habits”

17

I honestly believe this boy was not gang affiliated. He had just arrived in the US from Mexico this summer; his English Language Development (formerly ESL) teacher told us how this boy wanted to be a doctor and how he greeted her with a smile every day. I know these things don’t exclude him from gang activity, but here is what really leads me to believe he was clean:

Most of our gang-affiliated kids, or the wanna-be gang-bangers, claim their affiliation very publicly. They talk about where they’re from, who they’re pissed at, and they heckle kids from other neighborhoods. That never happened with this boy.

As to why he didn’t call 911, that goes back to the whole just getting here from Mexico thing. I have no idea what his immigration status was, but there is a huge fear of the police among our community because of anti illegal immigration efforts and because of the crookedness of the police in Mexico. Plus, he probably thought that the worst that would happen to him would be a beating, not getting pushed into traffic.

18

I hope there has been enough media coverage on this so that someone can identify the teens involved and can come forward with information that will help the police in their investigation. I’m sure those kids who might have pushed Francisco into traffic didn’t think it would be all over the news.

19

I taught in the inner city for twenty years and that included murderers, drug dealers, and rapists. You couldn’t tell who they were by looking or talking with them. There were some of them that I loved a lot and only a couple that I was afraid of.

It really bothers me when someone blames the victim. If you can’t cut a dead child some slack, I don’t get it.

This is part of the pain of teaching. How terribly sad for all of you.

20

Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry. I’ll be in prayer for his family and the school family: and I hope whoever pushed him is found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.