Speaking of which, why do stories like these always quote the mom but (almost) never the dad? Rhetorical question, I know but still...
Posted on 01/18/2006 10:24:30 AM PST by SmithL
When Rashad Williams was growing up in San Francisco, he was a track star with a future. In 1999, at age 15, he turned into a national hero by raising $40,000 for a victim of the Columbine massacre. Last year, he robbed two banks. In December, he died -- shot to death by a Clearlake man who said his home was being invaded.
Rashad Williams was 21.
"I don't know how I'm going to deal with this," said his mother, Sheila Burton. "My child is gone."
For Williams' friends and family, it is a shocking end to a life that was as improbable as any life could be.
Williams, a 15-year-old freshman at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco, decided to do something about it. He was planning to run in the city's annual Bay to Breakers race -- why not raise money for Lance while he was doing it?
"He came to me with the Columbine idea," recalled Marty Procaccio, Williams' track coach and counselor at Riordan. "He said, 'I have legs, and this kid doesn't.' "
Procaccio was surprised by the proposal, but he said it typified Williams.
"I knew him pretty well," Procaccio said. "In dealing with Rashad, I'd always known him as a kid with a huge heart. He had almost a simple innocence. He was very respectful --
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
--ah yes, another victim of "gun violence", I suppose--
Well, dayum...
Sheesh...I'll be he was actually selling girl scout cookies...
Important lesson here...
When you must defend your property, SHOOT TO KILL. The person (or persons) who is still alive gets to "say" what happened.
So how do you go from a sweet kid who raises money for victims of a tragedy, to robbing banks and houses? Mom...?
Naming him 'RaShad' was a good start toward a life of crime.
Speaking of which, why do stories like these always quote the mom but (almost) never the dad? Rhetorical question, I know but still...
These tragedies happen all across our nation on a daily basis.
The "patterns" are almost always there also.
Promising child caught in a tragic playout of tragic circumstances.
Drugs,alchohol and a series of almost circumstantial run ins with the law and legal authorities make up a tragic list of a Life Gone Down the Drain.
The grieving Parents invariably moan through their tears that thier child has been taken from them by Tragedy.
Because it is a daily occurence, most people just shake their heads in sadness.
It's almost Always the fault of the Parents who had the script right in front of them every second as it was daily added to up to and even after the child dies.
These are the consequences of Parent Failure.
Chances are you know more than one family who is going through this game of letting their child die young.
What are you doing about this?
Be sure that the shooting death of this once hopeful young man will be used to further Chris Daly's ballot initative to ban firearms inside the city, while the fact that the very presence of the medical marijuana clinics and it's illicit supporting grower network has amplified street crime.
... But you'll never read that in the SF Bay Guardian.
How does being a "high school track star" give one "a future"? Running from the cops I guess.
The promise for these kids always seems to be athletic. How many times in NJ have I read "Former hoop star arrested in..." or "Hoop star's death on the streets". They were high school athletes with promise that would have at least got them a college scholarship if not a professional career, and they were never prepared to do even the academic work required of a scholarship athlete.
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And everyone except Rashad lived happily ever after.
OK, so these thugs beatup the defender's (i.e., the shooter - probably a dirt bag himself) girlfriend and left her boy in a coma (this is buried waaaay down at the bottom of the article). Man, talk about a slanted story. Sorry, my sympathies to the former track star's family, but HE is the one that made a bunch of lousy choices; HE is the one that failed to graduate, etc etc, and HE is the one ultimately to blame.
Must be the "Projects" that do it. OJ Simpson's neighborhood.
Really a sad story all around, bt what of the kid in a coma from these dead boys? Doesn't his life mean something too? The article tries to make the dead kid into a tragic charactor, but I have no sympathy for his kind, he made his bed, nw let him lie in it, even if it's six feet under. Bad choices, bad friends, bad actions=EARLY DIRT NAPS
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