Gangs are not the only evil

[ellisonz]

Friends and family gather at the home of El Camino High soccer player Francisco Rodriguez, 17, who was shot and killed Wednesday evening. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times / January 12, 2012)

Edwin Johns Jr. was a hard-working college student gunned down a block from home. He didn't deserve to die, but really, what kid does?
By Sandy Banks
January 14, 2012

She's a mother and a high school teacher. She works in South Los Angeles but lives in a different neighborhood, one that affords her family the luxury of an arms-length relationship with crime.

So Jill Norton was stunned when she heard that a former student at Jefferson High — a "sweet and innocent kid" who played on the football team, worked at a grocery store and graduated early to enroll in college — had been shot to death on Jan. 2.

She was even more surprised when her daily search of the newspaper failed to turn up a mention of Edwin Johns Jr. or the shooting that took his life.

"I found nothing about him," Norton wrote to me. "Instead I found the article celebrating low crime rates, with a brief mention toward the end that 168 deaths were gang-related [last] year."

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0114-banks-20120114,0,3798502.column?page=1

Story on Francisco Rodriguez who is also discussed in this column: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-student-killed-20120113,0,710569.story

LATimes Homicide Report: http://projects.latimes.com/homicide/blog/page/1/


Smiley J Bang via Facebook
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/01/edwin_johns_jr_jefferson_high_football_killed_drive-by.php

This is a trenchant article on how our perceptions of violence in urban areas are skewed by police reporting to minimize our perception of the degree of suffering that occurs.

R.I.P. Edwin Johns Jr. and Francisco Rodriguez.

[RC]

1. Crime is not down, the reporting of it is.

The world is not less violent. And will not be as long as we are awash in guns and export war and war toys as a major component of our GNP.

[ellisonz]

2. Weekend Kick.