Andre Charles painted this mural
on Houston Street the day that
Tupac was shot in 1996
Today after our second prayer vigil for a homicide victim, Russell Sedum 24 years old, I stayed to talk with a friend and neighbor about the young man that was killed. This neighborhood, near the 3rd district police station, had once been a white neighborhood with a heavy Jewish population. As African Americans moved in the whites move out. However, the neighbor I talked to after the vigil told me how they were had become, until recently, a tight knit neighborhood where everyone knew each other and the children grew up together. That was changing now, as people moved away, the crime went up. This lady’s daughter was raped in the house during a robbery and she herself was almost a victim of carjacking.
In fact a carjacking was how Russell was killed and his mother shot. Russell had got his life together and was in process of becoming a popular tattoo artist. With his fame and money he had purchased some nice items, like his car. He, his mother and friends were glad for his success. However, as the neighbor said, his success made him a target for the robbery and carjacking. His mother had two sons, but one that was sick and handicapped had died a few years ago. There is a banner on the house to honor him, Nicholas. When the mother saw what was happening to her other son she ran out of the house to plea with the carjackers not to kill her son. They shot at her hitting her in the foot and then killed her son.
Before the vigil I had talked with a 26 year old African American male who was walking his two dogs. He told me he had just moved into the neighborhood a few weeks ago right before the other homicide close to the police station nearby. He had been surprised to hear shots ring out each night in this neighborhood. He told me he had lost 10 friends and family the last year, aged 18–26 to homicides. I could see from a page that he was a security guard. He told me that he was getting gun training and soon would be getting a concealed gun permit.
The neighbor had told me that she too was now going to apply for a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The other young lady in the conversation after the prayer vigil was family friend whose brother lived down the block and was the first to discover the bodies. At the end of the conversation her brother pulled up with his car to take her back home.
We are seeing an increase in homicides in Milwaukee this year, see Mothers Against Gun Violence and I fear that with the new gun laws, Castle doctrine law and conceal and carry law. More guns might be good for a gun dealers business but simply results in more shootings and homicides.
Today I read an article how suicides of military veterans have gone up 80% the last five years. I heard on the news tonight about more shootings in our city and about a famous football who committed suicide with a gun today. With our endless wars it seems like USA had decided to live by the gun and as they say: ”If you live by the gun you will die the gun.”
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