Posted on 03/15/2002 3:23:45 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
DUNDALK, Md. (AP) - High school football star Derrick Breedlove had enough charisma and talent to earn a full college scholarship and the respect of many in his working-class community. Then came Wednesday, when he was shot dead trying to hold up a liquor store with a pellet gun.
The 17-year-old with the "college-bound grades" was the ringleader of a robbery gang, police said. They had held up the same store three times since Feb. 5 and may have been responsible for a fourth robbery nearby, according to investigators.
On Thursday night, teen-agers clutching candles and flowers gathered to remember the Derrick Breedlove they knew: the high school senior who shouldered their hopes and dreams of a better life outside working-class Dundalk and the rural community of Turners Station. "If I had known, I would have stopped him," said a friend, Dominic Carmon, 18, between sobs. "He was like my brother."
Kim Stephanic, principal at Dundalk High School outside Baltimore, said the 6-foot, 2-inch, 251-pound Breedlove had a promising future. His coach recalled his raw talent. "He was one of the best football players I ever coached - his quickness, his strength, his desire," said Eric Webber, who helped him win the scholarship to Hampton University in Hampton, Va. "He was a college-bound kid with college-bound grades." Stepfather Derrick Shelton said Breedlove had fallen in with the wrong crowd. He moved out of the house rather than face punishment after he was caught with marijuana. He found an apartment but had quit his restaurant job.
"I broke down crying," Shelton said after Breedlove's death. "I couldn't believe he could do something like that. I sat down with him one day and said, 'Think before you doing something. There are consequences for everything you do.'"
Shelton, also raising two other children, ages 4 and 7, said Breedlove's mother left the family long ago. Shelton believes his stepson was lured into the robbery scheme by friends. Breedlove entered Modern Discount Liquor store Wednesday with a pellet gun demanding cash, investigators said. Clerk Richard Kosinski shot Breedlove. Breedlove never fired his pellet gun, police Cpl. Vickie Warehime said. Kosinski has not been charged.
Ryan Raivel, 17, a senior whose car was seen leaving the store's parking lot, was charged with armed robbery and conspiracy. Ryan Crowe, 17, a dropout, was charged with armed robbery. At the candlelight service in an empty lot across from the liquor store, many of the 200 friends and acquaintances wore hand-drawn T-shirts with Breedlove's nickname, "Dee-Bo."
"We want to remember him for his life, not his mistakes," 18-year-old James Pilkerton said. Not all in the community were sympathetic. "I'm mad," said Lori Thomas, 36, the mother of three. "You get what you deserve. Rob a store three times and I'll be there to shoot your butt."
Question for friends, family of teen: 'Why?' (Dundalk serial robber meets business owner's firearm)
Apparently not.
It's what you get when athlete role models are Dennis Rodman, Darryl Strawberry and hordes of other narcissitic brutes with too much money and all that comes with it.
The begs the observation; Crime is so endemic in black communities that when one of their own gets himself killed while committing a major felony, people react as though he was hit by a bus. They take to the streets wailing and gnashing their teeth screaming about injustice and whatnot.
When a white kid get killed while robbing or burglurizing someone (and yes, it does happen) the neighborhood reaction tends to be, "Too bad we didn't know Johnnie So-and-So was such a moron. Oh well, he got what he had coming to him." The friends and family of the dead white kid then hang their heads in shame for being associated with him.
Well, saints preserve us! Somebody in the community gets it right. In fact, it seems that this is not the usual slant on a shooting of this kind. Most of these people, while feeling sorry that the young man lost his life, are not making excuses for him.
Ray Lewis
This could be a very long thread.
Also, this dead thug is like the dead Talibaner thugs and al Queerdos in Afghanistan. They nor he will ever hurt or kill another innocent person! Turn out the lights on the thugs in life, and we live in a better world!
That is the rule - and yours is over the line.
Why is there a problem in accepting the story at face value?
From my perspective seeing him and his parents at several practices and games every week, I was shocked that he would run with these bad guys since he had so much going for him, and so did his parents, but I think that is expected in the black community these days.
That is where Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have failed blacks, they urge them to be angry instead of accepting responsibility for their own actions. Too many talented young black people are joining the crowds of angry black youth who prey on their communities, because that is what is expected of them.
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No, a mistake is saying that A squared plus B squared does not equal C squared in a right triangle on an algebra test. An armed robbery is not a mistake.
He should have stuck to dealing drugs, which is only a little safer in Balto.
What's over the line about it? It's true. Look at all the people in the community screaming over the "Football Star's" death. They should be outraged that they had an aspiring career armed robber in their midst. Instead they are making excuses.
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