Remembering Wilkinsburg-Mass Shooting In the Hood.

March 9, 2016 was a very warm day in Wilkinsbug PA,  about 2 miles from the City of Pittsburgh. So warm you can cook out.
At 11 pm shots rang out in Wilkinsburg nothing unusual Wilkinsburg is the hood.  Eight people were shot including a pregnant woman.  Six people including 4 women,  1 man, and an unborn baby boy.  They werent just shot they were slaughtered.

One man stood in the back alley behind Britney Powell's house and fired a hand gun as the victims ran to safety the second man shot them down with an AK 47 on the porch less than a foot away from safety.  In a few seconds three of Jessica Shelton's children were dead and two of her nieces were dead and her unborn grandchild.

The Suspects were caught,  nothing lights a fire under people's butt quicker than an International story in your County. Cheron Shelton, no relation to the victims, was angry because he believed one of the Survivors of the shooting and the brother of Brittney, Mike,  and Netta Powell, shot and killed his best friend and he saw an opportunity to hurt him by killing his loved ones.  They are still down the County jail awaiting trail. They will now spend the rest of their lives behind bars for nothing. 

RIP Netta Powell, and Unborn Baby,  Brittney Powell,  Tina Shelton,  Jerry Shelton, and Shada Mahone.

I promise you that I will never let anyone forget you.  

What the Church can do for the Hood

I am a new Christian who is growing iny faith.  I attend City Reach Swissvale when Im not working and I attend Small Groups which is Bible Study.  This church fits me because not only people like me welcome there they are a big part of the church.  Former Drug addicts,  the Homeless,  and Former Dealers, Prostitutes and other Street people.  Most people like me are not sure we are welcome in most churches because we have pasts and we were sinners.  I found this church because they do Outreach in my community.

When a person turns from a life of sin and degagration they know their is a God but they may not know where to find him.  They also do not know how to act. I still cursed a lot and got into figjts constintly but I had a desire to change.  I found people both from my church and my Mentor who lives in Maine to help me get rid of my anger and they tought me the bible.  I had to go through Santification which was a real difficult  process because you have to change.   I began reading the bible and learning about God's grace. To a former Street gang member God's grace sounds so wonderful.

There is a lot of need in the Hoods of America for churches to come in and do outreach and preaching.  Mainly what the people need to see and feel is loved.  Remember love is one thing we dont receive very often.

The Moral Crisis in the Hood

My mentor is teaching me about Morals and Morality. She feels that the Hood has lost the morality.
This is true once our Communitties were flooded with Guns and violence morality went out the door.

I remember the days before Drugs ruined my hood.  First of all,  if you did something wrong the adults in the Community told you about it and then told your mama.  We knew we bet not talk smart to Mrs Jenkons because Mama would tear our butts up twice.  This tought us respect for our elders. Today Young Sisters wanna beat up Mrs Jenkins instead of teaching the child respect she taught her child that he will get away with disrespecting adults.  Im all for defending your kid if hes innocent but most of the time they arent.

The Unwed Birth rates in the hood is 75% and since it started rising in the early 70s has increased.  These numbers dont reflect unmarried couples who remain together or Co Parent the child, as far as fatherless children go.  Sometimes a child has no father because the man left and chose not to be in the childs life a child may have had a father but lost him to homicide or his father is behind bars.

Children are being taught that its OK to use profanity even before they start school.  The children cant read or write yet but they can cuss like a sailor.

We have abandoned Faith all together replacing God and Church with Love and Hip Hop.  Church is where we learn morals and values.  The kids are learning their morals from Youtube and TV.  Children like adults

Because we have lost our sense of right and wrong for the third generation we are now in a critical stage of our existence. We may not survive as a people.

The Quiet Before the Storm

Last Tuesday around 8 45 Pm I heard all these sirens rushing past my house in North Braddock PA they were heading towards East Pittsburgh. I paid little attention to the Sirens because this is the hood there is always sirens in the hood especially in the Spring and Summer.  Then I got on Facebook and the first post I see is from my niece who posted that the Cops Killed a kid.  My heart sank because we had already had 9 murders in the City most of whom were unsolved now a child was killed by the Police. This was not a good thing. The Community and the Police have always had a strained relationship and recently there have been some improvement in that relationship, but this could set that progress back. 

A Police officer shot a 17-year-old boy who was running from the car. The boy had no weapons and witnesses stated that the cop was roughly speaking to the Jitney driver he had in hand cuffs.  He did not tell the two passengers not to run but as soon as they got out of the car he shot without yelling stop or saying anything to the young man. He shot him three times in the back.  His name is Antwon Rose Jr and he was from Rankin.

The Officer stated that he stopped the car because it matched the description of a car involved with a Shootout/Drive By and he could tell this was the car because of the Bullet holes in his car.  This is a discrepancy because how can it be a car involved with a Drive By but had bullet holes.  If the car had bullet holes, then that would indicate that there was no Drive By but a shootout.  I know the area where this shooting took place its on a corner about three blocks from my house.  They are notorious for shoot outs that occur daily. The Hood says that it was a shoot out but of course the media states Drive by so some citizens of Allegheny County can make Racist remarks on media pages.  However, as Journalists you would think they would want to report fact.

The Protest began Wednesday in Downtown Pittsburgh which was peaceful. Later that evening the Activists from the Community organized a Protest starting at the police station in East Pittsburgh that caused the Parkway East to close for several hours.  The Parkway East is part of the highway system in Pennsylvania. They also protested at the PNC park at a Pirates game and over at the South side of Pittsburgh. The protest at the South Side was majority white. 

The People here are emotional and hurting because it is bad enough we have young people in the community shooting and killing each other and to have someone outside of the community shoot one of our children in the back is unbelievable.  Nothing says your life doesn’t matter more than the people who are PAID by your tax dollars either by Property taxes or by your rent, shooting a teenager from your community, in the back.  Like we chanted at the Protest. “Three shots in the Back How are You gonna justify that?” The Police is already trying it and they have John and Jane Redneck saying “He was a killer” The person shot was treated and released and as I said before was a shootout people are going to get shot.

Yesterday was the funeral for Antwon Rose Jr, held in the Junior High School that he attended as a 7^th and 8^th grader.  There was a long procession of cars of people who were there to say good bye to the Honors Student who wrote a poem about Violence in the Community. He was afraid of being murdered by someone in his community. He had no idea that he would be murdered by someone who should have protected him.  Yes I said he was murdered being shot in the back means you murdered someone who was no longer a threat.  This is no different then being shot in the arm pits that means you had your hands up.  However, the Police will always win when it comes to this. They lose when the community loses faith in them again and NO CRIMES get solved.

The past seven days, the local media has gotten more wrong about the stories than correct. The District Attorney, who already has a strained Relationship with the African American Community, announced that he wouldn’t be making an announcement before the family buried their 17-year-old son. He said he would make the announcement soon but since he is a Democrat who lost a state wide Primary to the Current Attorney General because of his fractured relationship with the black community in Allegheny County.  The people in this community reached out to the communities of Philadelphia and Harrisburg and all over the State of PA and let them know that he ignores us and our issues. He lost in a landslide.

So here we sit we know that if the announcement is the Officer is cleared then the streets of my neighborhood will erupt first followed by one hood after another until this city is on fire.  We know this because the ONLY thing to cause a riot is POLICE BRUTILITY and especially what the community views as a cold blooded murder.

We have not gotten any word about when or if he will announce today because he will more than likely not give to much of advanced notice and will try to hold off as late as possible. We always hope and pray that there is no riot but its been a long time since 1992 and this community is ready to blow.

My heart goes out to victims of Mass Shootings but what about the mass killings in the Hood

This week another school shooting happened. They were saying there were 30 in the past 45 days. My heart goes out to the families. The people in the hood unlike the rest of America know we don't ask "Why?" We know there is no answer and we have learned to face facts that some people are just "Rotten to the Core" as my mother used to say and there ain't nothing you can do to prevent this. No amount of blaming guns and the Mentally Ill is going to change that.

Every time there is two things people say is the gun debate then the Mental illness. First of all most homicides are committed by illegal guns. They beg or yell at the President like he can help. He can not prevent this and neither can congress. Passing new laws won't stop it because someone bent on killing a massive homicide will not care about obtaining a legal weapon.

The killer is Mentally ill. That makes me so mad. You stigimize this group as a person who works with these folks its really annoying. Medication is really effective treating mental illness. You might have spent an hour talking to a schizophrenic and not even know it.

Losing a child is heart wrenching no matter what the cause, homicide is However, worse because someone stole your child. I'm sure for those parents the non stop news coverage and your child is now a victim in another mass or school shooting. They also know that when the next mass shooting occurs the media will leave them alone with their grief. The country will move on but those families will be forever be destroyed. The Hood knows this because the hood is an expert at burying our young. Now if the media would cover Urban Violence the way they cover Mass shooting s maybe it would be better.

Allegheny County Jail strip searches inmates after visits from lawyers and Therapists.

Allegheny County Jail is one of the worst jails in the Country. As most of the inmates in this jail have NOT been convicted of crimes, they sure violate the rights of all inmates.

I am a Mental Health worker, who frequently get our Consumers from the Allegheny County jail I have had several of them state that while they were incarcerated they did not receive medication for their mental illness and were on the Psyche floor. Sometimes they did not receive meds for a week. Most of these men are not hardened criminals they are Vagrants or other petty crimes. They also have not been convicted.

My nephew was an inmate in Protective Custody because the Ayran Nation targeted him with violence. One day another inmate in protective Custody, charged with Homicide stabbed my nephew seven times including in the face.  Instead of medical treatment he was thrown in the hole despite the fact that my nephew wasn't fighting he was attacked. My nephew sued the jail and they removed him from Protective Custody putting his life in danger. My nephew did not back down and obtained an attorney.  He is currently serving a harsh sentence for a crime he did not commit. He actually is safer where he is than he was in the County jail.

Today, I found another article from a local paper, about the jail strip searching women after returning from seeing their doctors and therapists because according to the Criminals who run and work at the jail they want to prevent drugs from coming in. This makes no sense to me. Do they believe lawyers would be stupid enough to risk their careers to sneak inmates drugs. They haven't stopped there and now strip search inmates who are in therapy. Again, do you really believe Therapists would risk their careers for drugs. I do not buy that anymore than I buy Lawyers ate doing it. You can read the story here http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2018/02/05/Allegheny-County-Jail-strip-searches-contraband-impede-therapy-with-inmates-sexual-assault/stories/201802050086.

This jail needs the County to straighten up this place and stop violating people's rights.  Everyone has rights and Convicted or not no one has the right to not be abused and have their rights violated.

Allegheny County Jail needs to fix its broken system.

What the Hood Needs Community Elders

I am a Community Elder for my Hood. I lived for 53 years and I still live in 15104 my hood.

Our young people have lost direction and because they grew up in a war zone violence has become a way of life. Prison and jail are considered cool and instead of college many aspire to "catch a Case". They are young so they do not realize this decision can ruin their lives completely. They do not realize that most employers shy away from Convicted Felons even if they did their time.  They will struggle with money for the rest of their lives or end up behind bars.

Community Elders, both male and female, must stick our noses into other people's business and tell the youth the truth that their lives not only matter but that they are very important. We must educate a kid that refuses to attend school that school is more likely to get you out of the hood than Prison. Employers hire those that go to school and college can be possible if they work hard enough or even if they graduate they will still do better than refusing to go to school or not doing anything when you attend. We have to start telling ourselves that Education is FOR us too.

The entire Hood is sick of the Violence and drugs destroying our Hoods and its up to us to end it. We have to change the way we live. We have to learn how to control our temper. I still struggle with that. We need to stop blaming others for our mistakes and learn.

The Violence in our communities have nothing to do with race as generational poor whites are also imprisoned in massive numbers in fact, poor White men are the majority of Prisoners. Do not let the media's lies make you believe it's Minorities and think If its only Minorities in Prison than why do they have so many prisons in Maine or North Dakota. They are both white states and I'm sure the entire 3% of minorities are not ALL in Prison.

We need to get morality back. Although most of the Community Elders have never married ourselves. We have learned that marriage is the best. The middle class of all races did not abandon marriage only the poor. Although our young people are getting married more there are to many single couples.

I actually believe that we need to get back with God. I, myself, found Jesus but if Allah keeps you on the straight and narrow then I'm fine with that.

As the Elders we must listen to all of our Youth and withhold judgement. We need them to come to us and tell us how angry they get and advise them that violence causes more problems than they solve. We have to also stop ourselves from doing it.

We need to start programs that gives teenagers jobs and after school programs for younger kids. We have to keep our babies off the streets and our teenagers with legitimate money in their pocket because a kid with his own money won't sell drugs.

We have to build a Relationship with the police and get rid of the no snitching. We need to encourage the police to participate in Community events and become partners with them.

Last we need to learn to love and respect each other. We are all in this together. Community Elders need to lead the way.