Fenger Pointing
Don’t go away, it’s time to play……….THE BLAME GAME!!!!!
Charges are beginning to fly of police neglect in the brutal beating death of Chicago Fenger High School honor student Derrion Albert. Folks in the embattled neighborhood are once again looking for someone, anyone, to blame for the senseless, savage beating that snuffed out the promising young life of the 16 year old innocent bystander. Anyone but the members of the community that is. Parents of other Fenger students are now blaming the tried and true scapegoat Chicago Police Department as being culpable for this gangland beat down. Others are blaming the Board of Education for changing teachers at the school.
The fatal beating occurred after school on Thursday. That same morning before classes commenced a Fenger student fired a shot at another student. Parents are claiming that because of that incident police should have known that there would be trouble after school. On the surface their reasoning seems sound. The only problem is that shots are fired on a regular basis in the neighborhood and gang fights are even more common between kids from the Altgeld Garden housing project and kids from the small area of the Chicago Roseland neighborhood known as the Ville where Fenger High School is located.
The Altgeld Garden kids are viewed as the outsiders and are frequent targets of neighborhood gang violence. It is the class A typical street gang mentality of protecting their turf against the dreaded foreign invaders from Altgeld. It is also class A stupid.
While community activists begin their campaign of news conferences to complain about the police, Chicago police detectives continue to be frustrated by the neighborhoods “Code of Silence” in their efforts to arrest all those responsible for the homicide. Four teenaged gangbangers have been arrested and charged with murder having been identified by a video of the beating from a cell phone of one of the more than 20 witnesses that stood by and watched. Police have made several appeals through the press and going door to door for additional information, but to no avail. They are currently working with the FBI to enhance the poor quality video in an attempt to identify more of those involved.
Switching blame to the police has become the standard operating procedure in these all too common and all too tragic gang related murders. The police have once again stated their commitment to uphold the peace, what little of it there is, but the community has to be a partner in that effort.
The gang activity in these neighborhoods is not only tolerated but in many ways celebrated. Gang membership has become a rite of passage and is all too often passed down from parent to child. Parental involvement has to begin long before the teary eyed news conference asking for information about a poor kid’s death. In the case of Derrion Albert, his parents led him away from gang activity and onto the honor roll at school. Unfortunately other parents did not do the same with their children.
Like the young teenager who fired a shot that morning at school. He didn’t buy that gun on his way to school. It came with him from home. And the young gang members responsible for Derrion’s death. They didn’t join a violent street gang that day. This violence has been going in this neighborhood for years. When police step up patrols and arrests the community lashes out with claims of racism and profiling. Good, promising young kids like Derrion die because the community accepts the violence as a way of life.
The Chicago Board of Education targeted Fenger this year as a “turnaround” school, firing ineffective teachers and increasing resources. The Chicago Police joined in with increased patrols and made the area a high priority for gang crime enforcement. But without an equal partner in the community all the money and all the increased patrols are for naught.
Instead of holding news conferences community activists need to get active in the community breaking the never ending cycle of gang violence and community apathy. It’s time to step up and start taking responsibility.
It will start with coming forward and identifying those responsible for Derrion’s murder.
