Posted on 04/02/2008 7:23:32 AM PDT by 2banana
'Mother's pride' is laid to rest By DAFNEY TALES & DAVID GAMBACORTA Philadelphia Daily News
LONG AFTER the final hymn had been sung and the last rose had been laid across her son's bronze casket, Sharon Conroy sat in her quiet home in Lansdowne trying to make sense of it all.
Her mind drifted through a steady stream of tender memories of her son, Sean Patrick Conroy.
She could see him as an eager, grinning Cub Scout, then as the kid who went to dinner and a movie with her every Friday night until it seemed uncool at age 15.
She remembered his spontaneous move to California after high school to become an animator for Disney, then his return to the Philadelphia area, where he matured into his "mother's pride," working as a mentor in North Philly and helping out with charities.
He found a job that he loved, running a Center City Starbucks, fell in love with the woman of his dreams and, at age 36, planned on a full and happy life. "This was the gentle man I was lucky enough to call my son," Sharon Conroy said.
Then it all fell apart on an underground SEPTA platform in Center City last Wednesday afternoon, when four teens inexplicably attacked Conroy's son, kicking and punching him until he had a fatal asthma attack, police said.
Police arrested Kinta Stanton, 16, a 10th-grader at Simon Gratz High School, and charged him as an adult with murder. Stanton has refused to identify the other youths, who also attend Simon Gratz and remain on the loose, a police source said.
Last night, people who answered the door at Stanton's home on Smedley Street near Griscom told a reporter that they didn't know him.
The fatal attack, which investigators said had been unprovoked, has incensed citizens across the city, from everyday SEPTA riders to Conroy's friends and relatives.
They wonder why no one has turned in the other teens, or what could have prompted them in the first place to attack an innocent guy who was known for his gentle, easygoing nature.
Through it all, Sharon Conroy said she remains calm in this tumultuous sea of anger and pain.
"It's not to say that I'm not angry," she said yesterday, hours after her son was buried at Ss. Peter and Paul Cemetery, in Marple Township. "But my son was a gentle person and would have wanted us to get all the facts."
Conroy said nearly 200 teary-eyed mourners packed St. Cyril's Church, in Lansdowne, for her son's funeral, and the funeral procession included 170 cars.
Starbucks employees were among the attendees, including Mike Rose, a district manager, who talked about Conroy as helpful and compassionate.
Old friends from his Cub Scout days showed up, and a former employer from California sent a two-page euology about how "gentle and polite" Sean Patrick Conroy was.
On Easter Sunday, Conroy became engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Stevany Johar. Yesterday, Johar released a statement through Sharon Conroy, which read in part:
"I still cannot accept his death in so many ways. Everything reminds me of him. Part of me still believes that he will come home, give me a kiss and also a hug like he always did."
In the week since Conroy's death, SEPTA's subway lines have been flooded with more than two dozen members of the Guardian Angels, the civilian watchdog group that was founded in 1979 in response to violence on New York's subway system.
"SEPTA riders are terrified," said Curtis Sliwa, founder and president of the organization. "These kids come on like a tsunami onto trains and trolleys and start acting wild."
The Guardian Angels will patrol the Broad Street line and the Market-Frankford El Monday through Friday, from 1 to 5 p.m., to address commuters' fears. *
Daily News staff writers Mensah Dean and Kirstin Lindermayer contributed to this report.
Bears repeating.
How is it that an anti-gun woman in gun unfriendly Los Angeles happen to be carrying?
Michael Frazier
Still, Wright speaks English. The mullahs speak hate in Arabic and make pleasantries in English. Wright speaks hate and pleasantries both in English. Hooray for Wright speaking out! Because he at least is like the dog that barks before biting.
I am happy there are fellows like Joe Truitt and his brother. Hooray for the Truitt brothers!
All of our perspectives are affected (some would say warped) by our personal experiences. Somebody who lives in a la-di-da exurban community has a different perspective than someone who lives in a congested urban community, where the platitudes of political correctness are challenged on a regular basis for all involved.
I had this happen to me. I was walking through a parking lot and a group of African-Americans were gathered around a car. I heard someone say, “hey there’s a white guy, let’s git him!”
By the time I turned, there was an unknown number of guys jumping me. Luckily, this was on an Army post and right next to my baracks. The baracks cleared out and a brawl ensued, so my damage was pretty minimal. Then I got in trouble for “inciting a brawl!”
Rascism is racism, regardless of the aggressors!
More arrests:
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080402_3_more_teens_held_in_fatal_Center_City_attack.html
Need advice from you guys, because I worry that I may be the next hate crime victim. I live alone in a wooded area, a small older white woman. I’ve complained to UPS several times that their driver drops my packages on the road 100 yards from my house, making no attempt to come up my driveway. Anyone could walk or drive along and pick up those packages, as no houses face the road.
The errant driver is a black man. I did complain three times to UPS. Last week, he delivered a box at a time when I happened to be coming home. We talked, or HE talked, giving me the okey doke about how hard my driveway is to navigate, the power lines overhead are too low. I told him that if he’d bother to come up the road during the last nine months, he see that I’ve had trees taken out and the cable and electric companies have tightened the wires.
Two days later, last Thursday, he came up to my gate, then got out and started yelling that the lines had not been raised. Well, they had been, but apparently not high enough for his truck — though DHL and FedEx have had no problems.
I took mop from the carport to hold up the wire, but something fell into my eye, and I ran into the house to get goggles and clean out my eye. When I came out, he had gone. About two minutes later, he came stomping up on my porch and pounded on my door. When I opened the door (a mistake) I could see he was in a rage. He managed to hold onto it and just shout at me: “I backed down the driveway.” And off he stomped again, leaving me shaken and terrified.
Here’s my problem. If he were white, I’d have complained to the company immediately with a phone call followed by a letter to various execs including the CEO. But BEcause He Is Black, I’m afraid to say anything, as he may try to get back at me....next year when the house burns down, who will I suspect?
So what do I do? I thought I might go down to the police station and ask them. I know they are VERY careful about who drives around this island, very protective.
I’ve written to various online vendors asking whether they can please please send packages any way but UPS, and if not, I will not order from them again.
But getting in touch with UPS and lodging a complaint, or at least tactfully suggesting anger management for this man seems risky.
What do you think?
Thanks,
Ms. Veto
Give me the L.A. Police precinct that handled your “shooting”.
What was the detective's name that investigated the shooting?
Your "story" is bovine scat, and you and I both know it.
I used to have a t-shirt (that I mainly wore when I was overseas) with an image of Teddy Roosevelt shaking his fist saying “Bully for Bernhard Goetz!”
On the back it said “Go ahead, ask me for $5”
My friends from New York thought it was suicidal.
Fully agree with you there ... on a few occasions, I felt the need to go about armed while living in Maryland ... totally illegal, of course. "Concealed" means nobody knows you have it.
Most of what you say is true (the snide Calipornian comment aside), but what has any of it to do with the young lady's anecdote smelling of BS?
Actually, when you get down to it, what does it have to do with the thread, which I took to be about the increasing number of cases of black teenagers attacking whites and, in this case, causing the death of a white man which are not being attributed to racism? While we are at it, don't diss those "criminal" Mexicans, yet. They're doing a bang up job of ethnic cleansing of blacks here in California and your day is likely coming in the North East,
Michael Frazier
Report it anyway, to UPS and the police, purchase a gun and learn to use it, and get a dog.
You don't say where you live, so the gun part of my advice may not be valid where you reside. Good luck to you.
Michael Frazier
Sounds like the right thing to do. UPS drivers have to make a certain amount of stops a day, even it it takes them to 9 PM at night. Maybe he was just mad he wasted so much time delivering 1 freaking package. If you still feel uncomfortable - get a shotgun. And a big dog. And a big man...
MOST black people are killers? Is that what you're saying? You're full of crap. Show me a statistic which shows MOST black people are killers.
These inner city gang ‘youths’ are just misunderstood kids that need a break. Former Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales said so. This nonsense is tolerated by both parties.
Amen...
What do you mean? Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell and Alan Keyes probably have a gang where they kill 100 white people a year...each.
Can you prove they DON’T?
/sarcasm
Just as the latter ethnically cleansed white folk from Newark, St. Louis, Philly, Baltimore, much of Chicago, etc. We are used to ethnic succession in the northeast.
What if this victim had been gay?
That would put the media on its ear
Ping
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