what goes up must come down
Sigh... I feel like all of these threads just came together this afternoon, in the space of like 20 minutes. [I hope this post doesn't make people afraid to come visit me in the future.]
We've been having this problem with kids hanging out in the lot next door. I would estimate that they range in age from 14 to 17. They are here every day, from 3:30 until at least 11:30. Here, drinking. It makes me sad that they don't have anything better to do, but if they were just drinking, I wouldn't have a huge problem with it. No, here are the reasons why I have a problem with it: they litter, they piss on the buildings, they tag the buildings, Corey's windshield has been smashed ("uh, yeah... there were some kids... they were like playin catch with some rocks or something, and they threw some over there. Don't call the police"), two weeks ago they started a fire, and about a month ago they picked a 16-year-old kid off the street, beat him up in front of our house, kicked his face in, and left him for dead. The kid had bitten off his tongue. We have called the police, but nothing comes of it. The reason this is such a great place for them to hang out is that you can pass between houses from the street to the alley, so whichever direction the police come from, the kids just saunter out the other way. We're going to start calling 311 whenever we see them so much as drinking, but honestly, how high do you think underaged drinking is going to rate on the police's priority list?
Anyway, this weekend for the first time I noticed A hanging around with this group. I know A because he used to come to the after-school program at the high school, although I hadn't seen him in several months. My heart sank... I don't want to see him here. I don't want him getting into trouble, and I don't want to call the police on him. I did want to talk to him, but I thought that calling him away from his friends would make things difficult for him, or me, or both... but I made sure that he saw me. I waved when his friends were looking the other direction, and he nodded at me. So he knows I'm here. For whatever that's worth.
But I still wanted to do something, and I thought that maybe I could talk to Maximo at the high school, and he would know what to do. Maximo is in charge of gang-prevention initiatives as well as technology, in the broadest sense (the school is kind of under-staffed). He was around a lot when we were starting this class, and it was clear that he knew all the kids and had a good rapport with them.
When I got to the school, I went to the office and asked if I could speak with Maximo... and it turns out that as of one week ago, he no longer works there. After talking with a couple of different people in the office, I found someone who knew of A (based on first name, nickname, and physical description), and he came up with the name of a teacher who would be a good candidate for someone who could check in with the kid. So I left my phone number, and hopefully I'll get a call.
Shortly after I opened up the media lab, Tim came in with O, who has been a pretty consistent presence in the class throughout the year. He always has some project that he's working on, and he actually gets excited about the class. He's also 10th grade class president, well-liked, takes classes at UDC, and is just an awesome kid. But today he didn't open up his photomosaic project... he opened up a poster that he's working on in honor of the senior who was killed on Sunday in Columbia Heights. He left behind a 4-month-old daughter. I had read that another kid was shot in the leg during the same incident, so I asked O if he'd heard how this kid (who has not been named in the reports because he's a witness) was doing. And he said. "oh, you mean J?"
Goddammit. Of the dozen or so kids that I've met at the high school, my favorites (I'm not even going to apologize for having favorites) are A, O, and J. All of them are sweet, polite, creative, goofy, awkward, intelligent kids who should have bright futures ahead of them. O seems to be doing fine, but the other two... I'm just so angry when I think about all the crap that they shouldn't have to worry about, circumstances and peers and parents and strangers throwing up roadblocks in their paths. Which is not to say that personal choices don't count for anything, but they have so many more opportunities to mess up than I did and do, and the consequences are so much higher.
We've been having this problem with kids hanging out in the lot next door. I would estimate that they range in age from 14 to 17. They are here every day, from 3:30 until at least 11:30. Here, drinking. It makes me sad that they don't have anything better to do, but if they were just drinking, I wouldn't have a huge problem with it. No, here are the reasons why I have a problem with it: they litter, they piss on the buildings, they tag the buildings, Corey's windshield has been smashed ("uh, yeah... there were some kids... they were like playin catch with some rocks or something, and they threw some over there. Don't call the police"), two weeks ago they started a fire, and about a month ago they picked a 16-year-old kid off the street, beat him up in front of our house, kicked his face in, and left him for dead. The kid had bitten off his tongue. We have called the police, but nothing comes of it. The reason this is such a great place for them to hang out is that you can pass between houses from the street to the alley, so whichever direction the police come from, the kids just saunter out the other way. We're going to start calling 311 whenever we see them so much as drinking, but honestly, how high do you think underaged drinking is going to rate on the police's priority list?
Anyway, this weekend for the first time I noticed A hanging around with this group. I know A because he used to come to the after-school program at the high school, although I hadn't seen him in several months. My heart sank... I don't want to see him here. I don't want him getting into trouble, and I don't want to call the police on him. I did want to talk to him, but I thought that calling him away from his friends would make things difficult for him, or me, or both... but I made sure that he saw me. I waved when his friends were looking the other direction, and he nodded at me. So he knows I'm here. For whatever that's worth.
But I still wanted to do something, and I thought that maybe I could talk to Maximo at the high school, and he would know what to do. Maximo is in charge of gang-prevention initiatives as well as technology, in the broadest sense (the school is kind of under-staffed). He was around a lot when we were starting this class, and it was clear that he knew all the kids and had a good rapport with them.
When I got to the school, I went to the office and asked if I could speak with Maximo... and it turns out that as of one week ago, he no longer works there. After talking with a couple of different people in the office, I found someone who knew of A (based on first name, nickname, and physical description), and he came up with the name of a teacher who would be a good candidate for someone who could check in with the kid. So I left my phone number, and hopefully I'll get a call.
Shortly after I opened up the media lab, Tim came in with O, who has been a pretty consistent presence in the class throughout the year. He always has some project that he's working on, and he actually gets excited about the class. He's also 10th grade class president, well-liked, takes classes at UDC, and is just an awesome kid. But today he didn't open up his photomosaic project... he opened up a poster that he's working on in honor of the senior who was killed on Sunday in Columbia Heights. He left behind a 4-month-old daughter. I had read that another kid was shot in the leg during the same incident, so I asked O if he'd heard how this kid (who has not been named in the reports because he's a witness) was doing. And he said. "oh, you mean J?"
Goddammit. Of the dozen or so kids that I've met at the high school, my favorites (I'm not even going to apologize for having favorites) are A, O, and J. All of them are sweet, polite, creative, goofy, awkward, intelligent kids who should have bright futures ahead of them. O seems to be doing fine, but the other two... I'm just so angry when I think about all the crap that they shouldn't have to worry about, circumstances and peers and parents and strangers throwing up roadblocks in their paths. Which is not to say that personal choices don't count for anything, but they have so many more opportunities to mess up than I did and do, and the consequences are so much higher.
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