This past week, there was a column in the Toronto Star (I will add the full column at the end of this post) describing how a neighbourhood in Toronto - allowed a Teenager to be beaten to death and did nothing about it. There were several witnesses and this boy's death could have easily been prevented. Yet, they stood and watched, or simply listened to the beating and did nothing. One woman's comment was that others would not understand because they do not live in the neighbourhood. My response to that is "thank goodness" I do not live in a neighbourhood where people ignore their fellow man. Who would want to live in such a heartless area, where people who could have been that one shining light in the darkness of that boy's last hours on earth - failed him and failed society as a whole.
What kind of society have we become when we can turn a blind eye to the suffering of others? How can we live with ourselves knowing that we allowed a senseless death to take place right under our soul bearing windows (eyes)? If one lives in fear, then that fear overtakes that person as a whole. Is a life worth living when you know that you are responsible for allowing a person to die? (You may not have provided the actual beating but you participated in the murder by allowing it to take place).
When will people realise that they are responsible for society as a collective, and only when they stand up as a whole - will crime decrease? When will people realise that Law Enforcement does just that - they enforce the laws that have been set down in written word and no amount of policing will impact crime if we continue to turn a blind eye? When will people realise that they are the ones who makes things happen? When will people realise that they have the power to make change? When will people realise that if they stand up to crime; then they take back the streets and they give their children a safer place in which to live?
When will people realise?
Here is the column from the Toronto Star:
No 911 call in beating death
Teens always fighting: woman `I just wish I had done something'
Jul. 18, 2006. 08:35 AM
ROBYN DOOLITTLE
STAFF REPORTER
Several residents of a North York housing complex watched as a teenage boy was stripped down to his underwear and slowly beaten to death Friday night, but they say they didn't intervene because it didn't look that serious and violence is so common in the area.
The teen's disfigured body was found in a nearby Flemingdon Park ravine at 6:35 p.m. on Saturday. He collapsed in a wooded area behind an apartment building on Don Mills Rd., near Eglinton Ave. E.
Police have identified the teen but have not released his name because next of kin have not been notified. "They're always play fighting down there, but they play rough. I didn't think anything of it. He looked okay when I went out to see. Now I just wish I would have done something," said a mother of two teenage boys who did not want her name used.
Police say they're unsure why residents didn't contact them when they noticed the clash but say it may have been because they didn't think the boy was seriously injured.
"It's not really that bad of an area at all ... and we're getting a lot of help from residents," Sgt. Peter Churcher said. "(The most common problem) is kids end up getting in fights."
The woman, who lives in the complex on Grenoble Dr., said a neighbour called Friday night to say a group of about 15 teenagers had stripped a boy naked and were now "beating the hell out of him."
News of the beating spread quickly as neighbours went door to door to warn each other that they should bring their children inside and lock their doors — but no one called the police.
One man, who was walking by, saw the fight and pulled out his cellphone to call 911, but several of the assailants threatened him so he put his phone away and went home.
As the woman left her apartment about 8:30 p.m., she noticed that the teen was standing alone away from the group in his underwear. He did not appear in distress.
"He looked like he was composing himself. I don't know why he didn't just run away if he wasn't okay," she said.
Churcher said the Flemingdon Park area is no more dangerous than other parts of the city and suggested that violence is often correlated with rising temperatures.
An elderly woman who refused to give her name had another theory.
"We have to live here — that's why nobody ever sees anything.... No one wants to get shot for something they weren't part of," she said. "And people may not understand that, but it's because they don't live here."
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