March 13, 2008...6:04 am
The Second Tragedy of the Eve Carson Case
Police in North Carolina have arrested, in the past 24 hours, two suspects alleged to have murdered the late UNC Student Body President Eve Carson last week. Thus begins what I’d like to call the Second Tragedy of the Eve Carson case.
The first tragedy is quite clear to us all. A beautiful, young woman, with her entire future ahead of her gunned down during her senior year of college. She was 22. Death of anyone is a tragedy, but when someone is killed so young it makes you shake your head, look to the sky, and wonder why.
Then you deal with the second tragedy. Demario James Atwater, 21 of Durham, and Lawrence Alvin Lovett, Jr., 17, were charged in connection to the murder. Reads those ages over again carefully - 21 and 17. They are kids … young adults … kids killing other kids … young adults. That to me is a tragedy that two people so young threw their lives away because for some reason, unknown to any of us right now, they wanted to kill this person. North Carolina has capital punishment laws and likely this case could be a death penalty case. That’s up for the prosecution in Orange County, N.C., to decide.
There are so many questions that I think should be answered.
But how did Atwater and Lovett slips through the cracks and end up in a life of crime, especially at such a young age? Where were their parents? Did they have any involvement in their lives? Who were their friends? What influence did they have on them?
Each of these questions could help to understand why these Atwater and Lovett ended up in the mess - and it’s a mess - they are in now. I’m not trying to defend these two by any stretch of the imagination. If Atwater and Lovett are found guilty by a group of their peers, then they deserve whatever punishment the State of North Carolina deems appropriate in this case. My entire point in raising these questions is this: We don’t do enough in this society to reach out to trouble kids or kids that could eventually end up in trouble with the law. Sure, we have after school programs and things of that sort that tries to help, but we’re not getting at the root of the problem. These kids, I believe, need stronger role models than the ones they have currently that advocate this kind of violence. And we can do better reaching out to them.
Perhaps there is a third tragedy, then, in this case and many cases like it such as the the shooting in Los Angeles of a top high school football star, or the shooting of a young coed at Auburn University. That third tragedy is that we’ve ignored the problems within our inner cities, our youth, our young adults, our families for too long. We have to do better in showing love to those whom need love the most, and be an encouragement for those whom need encouragement, and do all that we can to show youth and young adults there is a better way to life than a life of crime and gangs.
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