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2. how many people died.

3. how old they were.

4. how many people were wounded.

5. what the reason for the shooting apparently was.

6. how many people were arrested.

7. how old the van driver was.

8. how, according to the article, the shooting could have been prevented.

 

 

No amount of investigation will ever be able to explain how a disagreement over a lost bracelet could end up costing four people their lives. There must, however, be answers to the troubling question of whether this week's horrific shooting in Southeast Washington could have been averted if government or law enforcement had acted differently.

The mass shooting in the 4000 block of South Capitol Street on Tuesday night was, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier told NewsChannel 8, one of the worst things she has seen in 20 years of policing in the District. Four young people – the oldest was 19 – were killed and five others were wounded when armed assailants in a minivan drove past and shot indiscriminately into a crowd. Police say the gunmen carried at least three weapons, including an AK-47-style assault rifle.

Three people have been arrested in connection with Tuesday's shootings. It appears, as The Post revealed in a horrifying account of the tragedy, that a bracelet gone missing at a party a week earlier may have set off a series of events that culminated in the shooting. "It’s crazy to shoot nine people and kill four people as they stand on the street corner because you're ticked off about something," said Chief Lanier.

What makes the shooting even more disturbing is the revelation that police wanted one of the suspects, 20-year-old Orlando Carter, arrested last week on suspicion of a March 22 murder, but prosecutors believed there was insufficient evidence. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office said it is a "rare circumstance" for police and prosecutors to disagree, but it's critical both offices get together to review how this case was handled – and whether different procedures need to be put in place. One of the reasons the city has had such success in bringing down the homicide rate and the overall crime rate is because of the police's improved knowledge of what's happening in troubled neighborhoods; it's maddening that police were alert to this tragedy in the making but couldn't forestall it.

Then too, there must be answers from the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services; the 14-year-old driver of the minivan, as well as one of the victims, appears to have been ostensibly under department supervision. The driver, who has been charged as a juvenile in Tuesday's shooting because D.C. law doesn't permit 14-year-olds to be charged as adults, had nine previous convictions, including theft and assault, and had absconded from the department's custody. The agency has undertaken many worthy reforms, but there have been troubling and persistent questions about how it places and supervises troubled youth in community settings. How was this boy being supervised, and were there missed signs of problems?

Our hearts go out to the families who lost loved ones. "My child barely weighed 100 pounds… shot in the temple with an AK-47… It's senseless," said the mother of 16-year-old Brishell Jones.

Nothing will make this crime any less senseless. But she and other grieving family members deserve, at least, some answers.

 

1. What ‘sickness’ is mentioned in paragraph 3?

2. What is the NBA?

3. Which teams are mentioned?

4. What is the difference between present and past stars in the writer’s opinion?

5. Is the writer black or white?

6. What does he complain about?

 

The recent headlines were chilling: NBA players allegedly brandishing guns in the Verizon Center locker room. Gang and youth violence plagues U.S. cities, and people constantly ask: What are young Americans thinking? Well, when we look at today's athletic and entertainment stars, we begin to see the answer.

Maybe young Americans are thinking like their role models: athletes or actors who, fairly or unfairly, have become the billboards of violent and destructive behavior.

The Washington Redskins' Sean Taylor was killed in 2007 by gun violence. Last year, Delonte West of the Cleveland Cavaliers was reportedly found carrying weapons after an arrest following a traffic stop. Before that, former NBA player Antoine Walker was at least twice held at gunpoint because of an alleged gambling incident. Investigations continue into what transpired between the Washington Wizards' Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton, but it has been established that guns were in the locker room – which Arenas called "a misguided effort to play a joke on a teammate." The NBA was right Wednesday to suspend Arenas. But the league cannot stop at addressing the symptoms of this sickness. It must deal with the issue of violence in sports and figure out ways to mentor the players who emerge from this culture.

Guns are not a joke. Violence and recklessness continue to be treated as acceptable and even heroic behaviour by part of our society. When I was growing up in the ghettos of Brooklyn, my peers and I knew unemployment, bad schools and social marginalization, but our athletic and entertainment heroes inspired us to beat the odds. Our ambition was to not submit to a subculture that would confirm the worst depiction of who we were and what our destiny would be.

Suppose that the stars of past generations – Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Althea Gibson, Marian Anderson – had used the challenges of their day to justify dangerous actions. What if Bill Russell or Hank Aaron had used the wickedness of segregation as an excuse to brutalize their peers rather than raising an image of excellence to the world?

[…] When I talk to parents in the aftermath of a beating death at a school, or a mother whose 13-year-old son was killed by a stray bullet, I wonder how much the athletes and entertainment giants of our time could help change the atmosphere that led to these situations.

We have not seen the level of partnership that we should from record companies and sports associations, advertisers and sponsors (those that regulate and profit from sports and entertainment) with the community groups that work in modern war zones day in and day out, trying to create an atmosphere of civility.

I also feel a keen sense of guilt that black leaders have not raised our voices more dramatically. If the assailants in these incidents had been white, we would have been marching, but because this is same-race behaviour, we shake our heads, say a few words and allow it to continue.

None of us – not the government, private industry, clergy, civil rights leaders or parents – has responded with the needed urgency. It is a crisis that youth today think they have more in common with Scarface than with Martin Luther King Jr., or look up to mobsters more than to Malcolm X. All of us must deal with the romanticizing of gunplay and denounce the idea that it is acceptable to resolve differences with destructive behaviour. Our society cannot continue to reward commercial success while telling people that their private misdeeds have nothing to do with their public images. We must have and enforce a standard for American heroes.

 

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