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."
It's just tiresome
I completely agree. While I do not even remotely fault the person who shot him as I would have done the same, not every kid 'deserves what he has coming to him'.
Thank you.
Seems that a certain sector of Freepers have a selective compassion switch that can be turned off/on.
No it's really not. The article is trying to paint this thug as some kind of fallen hero who got himself killed while engaging in behavior that has become normalized and accepted within the black community.
But, it seems to have energized a certain FR sector, crawling out from underneath their rocks or out of the woodwork.
Now you make it sound like I took time from posting over at "Stormfront" to come over here and cheer. That wasn't the point I was trying to make at all. A dead kid is nothing to cheer about --regardless of the circumstances. Better the kid than the liquor-store owner? Certainly. But it's sad that it came to that point at all.
I was merely making an observation that different communities react differently to crime. Is this due to white racism? Nope! I lay the blame squarely on the feet of black race hustlers who victimize and canonize gun-toting thugs.
It is unfortunate that this individual chose the path he did. That he didn't get very far down it isn't so unfortunate, however; nor is it particularly fortunate. It just is.
On the other hand, there is an incessant need by the media to paint criminals who get shot as though they really weren't so bad. Which is more tiresome--the media who so frequently paints a rosy picture of these types of criminals (at least if they're black)--or those here who deride the media's canonization of these crooks?
Please explain
Dundalk is not a "black community". It has always been a blue-collar community, adjacent to the huge Bethlehem Steel plant. No doubt the racial mix has changed over the years, but it is definitely not a "black community".
So no one can change? Is that your premise?
Good point.
And since I have no cable TV and go days and weeks w/o tuning into the local stations, I reckon I miss a lot of what informs my fellow Freepers.
Armed robbery is far more serious than most felonies. It takes a particulary hardened criminal to engage in armed robbery. I think it likely if he wsn't stopped, this crimianl would have sooner or later murdered one of his victims. In that sense it is fortunate he was stopped now.
Read above, it says, "no personal attacks". I take it personally that you think I and others crawled from under a rock.
And actually, they were basically good kids, and none of us could understand what had possessed them to do such a stupid thing. At least one of them actually was in college last time I saw him.
The kid used a pellet gun. A little less melodrama might be nice.
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.
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