The smell of death is again in the air. And it reeks of teenage flesh. This time it’s in a small Pennsylvania coal town of Shenandoah, where two white teens were charged today in what officials described as an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant. Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, were charged as adults for murder and ethnic intimidation.
This story sounds so tragically similar to so many other stories we’ve been reading about lately. This time we have drunk teens attacking and beating to death a Mexican father of two, because he was in this country illegally. Now two more children will grow up fatherless and a mother has become a widow.
And where will the energy go with the prosecutor who prosecutes this? Two white kids, apparently hate-filled football playing teens, could face prison for the rest of their lives. These kids may be done circulating in society forever. They will stay in juvenile hall until the trial. And if convicted, they could go to prison until they die. Their families may never share the same living room with them again. And, again, I ask, Why?
DEATH ON BOTH SIDES
Just like Nicholas Markowitz and Larry King, and their youthful killers before them, there’s going to be death on both sides of this crimson coin. Death to a victim. And death to the perpetrators. And probably death to their families by human proxy. Is this really what we want? Does this really make it better for any of us? Or can we come up with some kind of plan to not destroy these youthful offenders, but to rehabilitate them? Hold them in our collective bosoms and offer them the wisdom and warmth and lessons of compassion and life that escaped them before they wrought death.
And the biggest tragedy about all this might be the fact that some lame adult gave these young punks alcohol before the murder took place. Think the booze might have played a part in all this? Maybe these kids were decent kids, who committed a very horrible act. Right now, the facts aren’t all in. But the key will be how the community responds when it looks in its own reflective pond. Will anyone see anything they don’t like? Will anyone do anything to help these sixteen and seventeen year old killers avoid dying in adult prisons for their tragic mistakes?
And how will the race card be played in all this? Will anyone care that an illegal Mexican immigrant was murdered for being who he was? Will any of this be played out any differently than when a gay fifteen year old gets murdered by a fourteen year old classmate? Or how about a drug dealer’s fifteen-year-old brother?
