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.
Yes, indeed, that goes without saying, eh.
Michael Frazier
In 1985, in Deerfield Beach Florida, I was assaulted by three black youths in school. The leader had jogging weights. He broke my jaw and left me there. Went on to break another guy’s spine, and then found a little old man in his 80’s and beat him and left him in a garbage can and the old man died 3 days later.
They couldn’t find him. Nobody was talking. He was bragging to his friends, but nobody would talk to the police. Finally, his mother told him to make it right. So, he walked into the police station, confessed and then the cops read him his rights, and he refused to restate his confession. When he got to court, he said he was coerced. They let him off.
Tell me I’m racist for thinking that was a hate crime.
In 1994, in Raleigh, North Carolina, I was carjacked at gunpoint by two black youths who wanted a nice car from a white person so one of them could get his dishonorable discharge from the Navy. I was taken in the back seat, beaten over the head, had a gun shoved in my mouth, then taken out of the car, tied to a tree, beaten and then left in the woods with my girlfriend (who had also been beaten, sexually assaulted and tied up and left).
Tell me how, in your screwed up world that isn’t considered a hate crime, and that I’m some sort of racist or that I some how asked to have it happen?
I can tell you from personal experience that having a “hate crime” committed against you isn’t fun. And it isn’t just someone whining. When someone targets you because as one of the perps said “he was there, he was white, he was alone and I was mad” or because you’re the only white person in a nice car to come along in the two hours the perps are staking out the parking lot, then it’s a hate crime.
Paul
I do not agree with you.
I never said the crime in the article wasn't a hate crime. And I happen to think what's happened to you ARE hate crimes...
But you ought to take careful aim before you shoot at me.
Go back and read what societygirl posted...If she's not a racist, she's posting like one.
Get back to me when you've reviewed her posts.......
Are you comfortable that that site has KKK pamplets to download and hand out?
The answer to racism isn’t more racism.
Then you either did not bother to go into the site, or if you did wore blinders. Show me my opinion is wrong.
I don’t remember ANYWHERE in the Constitution where it mentions “totally Illegal” or “Illegal guns”, or “concealed”, or “sporting purpose” or, or...
I do remember that it says “The RIGHT of the people to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed” though...
I will carry WHEN and WHERE I choose, IF I choose, and BECAUSE it is MY RIGHT to do so as an AMERICAN CITIZEN. I will protect myself, my family and anyone around me. People are SAFER because I carry, even though they won’t ever have to know it.
I am not a subject - I am a citizen, with rights that are worth FIGHTING AND DYING FOR. So are you. So are we ALL out here.
Until we ALL start to remember that and live it, this will only get worse.
People DIED for this right. This young man DIED because he either chose NOT to exercise his right to carry (bad), did not KNOW he had a right to carry (worse), or “did not like guns...and did’t feel the need to own one.” (Worst).
You’re either sheep, wolves, or sheepdogs.
Clearly, the gangsta-thug-underprivileged baggypants rappers were even less than wolves. They were simply rabid dogs that should have been shot down in the street.
This is what we’ve come to. Anyone had enough yet? Then start carrying. Follow the law as much as you can, but if the law threatens your life as much as a criminal does, well, then you have to make that choice for yourselves. “Competing Harms”, I believe it’s called.
I already know my decision.
Excellent post.
I read the Sheep, Wolves, Sheepdogs essay on here not too long ago.
It’s been around a long time...and it’s appropo.
I agree.
The first time I read it was a few weeks or so ago.
It’s a shame for that man. The philly subway was horrendous back in the 80s, I can’t imagine what it’s like today. I certainly wouldn’t ride it unarmed. I still have sibs and other family who live there and they always carry.
I grew up in Philly. It was a nice place to be a kid, for a while.
When I lived there, it was rowhomes full of WW2 and Korea vets working in local factories and small businesses and raising their kids, trying to put the war behind them and live their lives. It was a real community, and Frank Rizzo was king.
Now, well, it is what it is...but hey, like Former Mayor Thug Street said...”The bruthas and sistas are in control now...the bruthas and sistas are in charge now!”
Yep. They sure are. And they’ve done SUCH a great, great job.
But hey...we’re racists for pointing that out...
Yep. Well said. Philly has always been divided by race (black/white) for as long as I can recall (late 70s on). We grew up knowing which neighborhoods not to enter. Even my high school and the public high (Southern) worked out the opening/closing times to try to alleviate some of the fights/crime.
Wow! I grew up in South Philly. Sure, as a kid it was great. Even as a teen, I loved it. It was home :) I have wonderful memories of my neighborhood. I went away to college (total culture shock) - Penn State, University Park campus. When I moved back home again, I hated the city and swore I would never buy a home/settle there. The neighborhood started changing too. New people moving in who didn’t have the same sense of community.
But even back then, the divisions were clear. I remember the cops lining up every night at 29th and Tasker, standing along the playground on 29th Street, keeping the peace between the neighborhood and the Projects (Tasker Homes?). The fights on SEPTA just trying to get to school (we’d usually walk rather than take SEPTA).
Didn’t you just love that statement from him? He is a thug and so is his brother Milton.
Yep, I know, I’m considered racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and probably every other name they can think up. I won’t lose sleep over it.
You are wrong on both accounts. You pose an either/or scenario and nothing else. You could do better...possibly.
Show me my opinion is wrong.
I have no intent of doing so. I simply said that I do not agree with you.
I don't either ... the statutes of the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Maryland have other ideas ... and that's what the cops will enforce.
So ... be careful out there.
I already know my decision.
As stated, I've acted on my decision, for years, as necessary.
“As stated, I’ve acted on my decision, for years, as necessary”
You’re not alone, bro...many, many of us out here. All brothers in the same fight.
Carry on.
Yes, but Frank BANKRUPTED the city through instituting no-bid contracts for the building trades unions (thugs almost to a man) and rolled over for the public employee unions as well. I never saw him as a great man, just as a control freak ex-cop who never saw a way to pay back his pals (via taxpayers) he didn't like.
Even if this was 1965, I would say that the only nabe in Philly that I would consider living in (if I had to live there) would be Chestnut Hill. Even the non-ghetto nabes in the Northeast are kinda dumpy. To each his/her own I guess.
I could get the info with just a spoon.
There are some highly regarded colleges in Phila, and people actually want to go there because they have no idea what they're getting into. I would talk my child out of going to school in Phila.
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