The City Game--We have Raised a Generation of Cowards

A teen basketball player was killed, and two other teens were injured when a gunman opened fire in Canarsie just after 3 p.m. Friday, blocks away from their high school. Shaquille Jones, 17, died from a shot to the head; a 16-year-old and 19-year-old were wounded and taken to Brookdale Hospital where they are listed in stable condition. Shaquille Jones was a junior basketball player for the Shouth Shore High School Vikings.

We have raised a generation of cowards, whose minds can no longer process conflict resolution, respectful debate or peaceful dialogue. All these young kids, both male and female, know how to do is lash out and hurt and kill at the slightest slight or the most trivial disagreement. These Soul-less creatures are a new hybrid of human being/robotic machine whose capacity for empathy and compassion grows weaker and smaller by the nano-second.

Many observers feel that these kids are just mimicking what they see going on in the world they were born into. With global wars, suicide bombings, "Virginia Tech" style mass-murder and the alarming rise of family killings, many point to a nation gone mad. They say that a feeling of tragic hopelessness permeates our society and has seeped into the open pores of these young children.

There was a time when a human life was one of the most sacred and precious things on this Earth. Sadly, if you look around at all the carnage and destruction going on around the world, you come to realize and understand this is no longer true.

Police don't yet know what motivated the shooting of Shaquille Jones, which occurred just after school was let out. According to the news reports, there was an incident at a nearby bus stop—in which someone fired shots—minutes before the three teens were shot.

My first story against youth violence published in 1994, 'The City Game' was about a gifted All-American high school basketball player, Sam Johnson, who dies tragically on the streets of Jersey City. Sadly, young 17 year old high school basketball star, Shaquille Jones, was gunned down on the killing fields of Brooklyn last Friday.