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."
This guy was dumb as a rock. Robbing the same store three times in a row is just plain stupid. That any school would give him "college-bound grades" does not speak well of the school. That any football training institution would even consider such a stupid person worthy of admission belies the real academic standards of such a place.
Bullshit. Double standard has created this, nothing more. You want to play the race card? Fine. I say, White, or Black...throw in some pink polka-dots...point a gun at me, I will attempt to kill you.
Double standards...whites commit crimes, their is a comment pertaining to race. More often than not, when blacks commit a crime, the leave that part out. Why?
SR
Okay, I'll crawl out from under the rock to address this. What we are talking about is the prevalence in black communities for talented young people to go bad, and that is a real shame, which we all regret. No one on this thread tonight has said that ALL black people are bad, we are saying that the culture is for young blacks to be angry and to act out against society and laws.
The criminals who should be charged with every talented young black man who goes astray are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who teach them that they are owed whatever they want because blacks have been oppressed since the days of slavery.
Whatever you are, black or white, try going through life believing that the world owes you a living, or free cash from the till. Black youth do seem to be more susceptible to peer pressure to be violent than white youth, but, it does come down to choice. We all make our own.
You know what you doing.
We get signal.
I was surprised at your responses at first, but then once you mentioned the racial factor the responses makes sense. I would think people could possibly have somewhat of a sense of grief over a sad story (not necessarily disagree with the shooting, not necessarily agree with the article..).
Why would the article fail to mention the fact that this happened in a black community? Because it doesn't matter what kind of community it happened in! It's still sad that a kid went down the wrong track and got shot because of it.
the = they
<cough)
While I will agree with most of your premise, I find this a bit much. How many parents do you know that would hang their head in shame over being 'associated' with their dead child who held up a store? Doubting themselves as parents for the rest of their lives? Probably. But shame for being associated with them? Not likely.
They ought to take money directly out of this dead scum's wallet to pay for the 409 and paper towels to clean up his blood.
Now that we're on the Jesse Jackson topic, I wouldn't be surprised if he now starts coming out and saying that this kid was shot because he was black.
Me personally, if I owned a store and a gun, and I was robbed three times, and the police didn't so much help... I'd probably defend my property as well (doesn't matter who's robbing it).
I have no sympathy for race hustlers and poverty pimps like jackson and sharpton. They are bad men
But, I got a little sad over the death of this boy. And, I was sorry to see the usual "he got was was coming to him....." and "when will these people ever learn....."
It's just tiresome
My candidate for dimwit of the year has to be Reuben Rivera, who recently admitted that he stole teammate Derek Jeter's glove to sell to a collector for a few thousand bucks. Rivera, who is star reliever Mariano Rivera's cousin, would have made a million dollars playing in The Bronx this year. After a vote by his teammates, he was given the heave-ho by the Yanks.
THE GREAT JOE BOB (A Regional Tragedy)
He was a panhandle prince... ahhh
Schoolboy football king
They told him `Hi' in the halls
Cause he could run them balls
But it was rumored (down deep) he was mean
He dated high-tone girls
With frosty pom-pom curls
But he never give out his ring
He was the best of the best
He met the grid-iron test
An there ain't nothin... as American An clean
He was the pride of the backfield
Ahhh the hero of his day
Yeah he carried the ball for the red an blue
They won District triple-A
An his name made all the papers
As the best they'd ever had
Yeah so nobody understood it
When the great Joe Bob went bad
First he lost his scholarship
To Texas Tech
For drinking during training
An breaking the coaches neck... yeah
Then he got suspended (ahhh) for acting obscene
Around the Cum-Laudy, Cum-Laudy Daughter of the Dean
So... He took up with a waitress
Named Loose Ruby Cole
While she was a-hoppin tables
Down at the Hi-D-Ho
An he met her on the sly
When her daddy weren't around
Yeah but he stopped making yardage
When he started messin round
Yeah it spread like a country wildfire
That something big had gone all strange
Joe Bob the greatest half-back
Was actin half-deranged... ahhh
He'd been seen out with this woman
Gettin drunk and havin fun
Yeah he growed his hair, then give-up prayer
An said `Football days is done'
Then... He and ol' Loose Ruby
Robbed Pinkie's Liquor Store
And had a run-in with the law
When they's a-runnin out the door
An Joe Bobs' fate was sealed
For the next century
Yeah he traded in the pigskin
For the penitentiary
OK, I'll concede a little hyperbole on my part about the parents. However, the parents would be unlikely to scream about pressing charges against the liquor-store owner (not necessarily in this case, but in many others).
Yet, I stand by my assertion that the friends would be ashamed. I went to a predominately white highschool where a kid got himself killed during a crime spree. And let me say, his friends (and the whole school knew who they were) hung their heads low for the short time they remained at that school. They sure as hell weren't making t-shirts.
Define for me what a RACIST is these days, please.
Are we racist if we require the color of the college applicant on the application?
Or are we ONLY racist if we wonder about the color and the impact on that particular ethnic groups community when a crime has been committed?
Are we racist when we tell white kids they CANNOT leave a school that has a certain number of minorities in it, but the minorities can leave?
Are we racist when we ask the Black community when they are going to start looking at the realities in their communities so they can SAVE the LIVES of more of THEIR young people? I'm a little confused, I guess.
A w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w !
</sarcasm>
I got a little sad, too, because it was so useless. He could have made something of himself, but instead, he went with the cultural hype which is you have to be bad to be cool.
I have no sympathy for anyone who gets shot on a third hold-up, black or white.
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