The bad news has been overwhelming: Last night in Oxon Hill, a 3 year boy died after being run over by the family car, which somehow began to roll backwards as the father and children exited the car. The father tried to get back in the car and gain control but was too late. The car struck the 3-year-old and the 2-year-old the father was carrying was somehow critically injured also. We’d already suffered through yesterday’s depressing list of tragic youth deaths, when I learned late yesterday evening that I’d overlooked one: a Baltimore man, pumping gas at a gas station in Hillcrest Heights was chased and gunned down by a DC man who was reportedly high on PCP.
Then I wake up this morning to hear that there has been an awful fire in Glenarden. A father and two of his daughters have died; the mother and 2 other children have survived but on of the children is in critical condition. LORD HELP US!!!! There were no working smoke detectors in the house. If you are reading this and you or someone you know has no smoke detectors, you can receive one for free and a fire safety advisory inspection of your home. Click HERE to be linked into the PGCo Fire/EMS Department. They will also install the smoke detector. CLICK HERE PLEASE.
Oh there are rants from the community and even some major newspapers about how leaders are downplaying the recent violence and bad news but I must disagree. Our leaders are doing a lot to bring social services to the schools and communities that need these services the most. At some point it is a matter of individual and municipal responsibility. The five young men responsible for the death of Charles Michael Walker Jr. look a mess. What kind of backgrounds do they have? Who raised them? What kind of homes and communities spawned these jokers? Take a good look at them and be honest: these do NOT look like a bunch of nurtured and highly parented young men. SOMEBODY shirked their personal responsibility and now we have 5 murderers instead of 5 employees, or 5 friends, or 5 guys with a hope of a future. And what about the Hillcrest Heights murderer Duane L. Williams of the 2800 block of 18th Street WDC? He crossed over into Prince George’s County and committed a heinous crime and now it’s our statistic. I’m a native Washingtonian so you better believe that I know a DC problem child when I see one: Duane L. Williams is the problem of DC and that municipality needs to deal with its ills just as PGCo has to deal with their poster children above (note: the chubby one pictured, Derryck Antonio Green, is an Alexandria, VA resident so there’s enough bad seed to spread on all our lawns.)
I’m not here to detract from what is clearly a bad current situation in PGCo, but I am here to let you know that this is not the day that our county will be branded by the media or a bunch of transplanted pseudo hipsters who might or might not be here post sequestration.
Deal with it.