Best advice after Bluffton teen shooting: ‘Today, I will take back my community’
The inmates are running the asylum.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Bluffton was told that in no uncertain terms after an outstanding teenager was shot and killed while driving through town a week ago.
We don’t yet know why he was killed, but we know there is absolutely no reason in it.
A classmate and cousin in the car was seriously injured, and a third teen also was hurt in the drive-by gun spree.
Dwon “DJ” Fields Jr., 18, was much more than a statistic in Bluffton, where his family has deep roots, where he wore No. 55 on the Bluffton High Bobcats football team, where he was a star employee at an ice cream shop.
He was known for his big smile. He had a plan for his future.
DJ was doing the right things with life, in the brief 18 years he was given.
Four suspects, all young, have been arrested, but authorities beg for more information.
And we’re left to wonder: At what point did young people start thinking that killing someone is an acceptable option?
I know there’s been murder on this earth since Cain and Abel.
But not long ago, the lowlifes we called “hoods” or “greasers” fought it out with fists or switchblades, or maybe a broken Coke bottle.
Now they have guns. When they’re barely old enough to drive, they’ve got guns.
And they think it’s OK to use guns to kill people, as if they would hop right back up and reload the game cartridge.
This, mind you, is not Chicago. It’s today’s Lowcountry.
To settle a difference, a 16-year-old shot and killed a 17-year-old in a park on Hilton Head Island.
Two days before Christmas, an 18-year-old high school senior was shot and killed in a Bluffton church parking lot. The first of four suspects arrested was 16.
We have a problem.
Death is forever, but teenagers with guns in their hands don’t seem to get that.
RAW FEELINGS
We’re left to point fingers in a lot of places.
Maybe it’s because our society is saturated in violence on television, movies, video games, song lyrics and social media.
Maybe it’s because there are too many guns in America.
Maybe it’s because legislators continue to enable more loaded guns, carried openly, in more places.
I recently got a petition from a group of pastors railing against that South Carolina bill, HB 3094, to allow more guns. The legislation is now before the state House of Representatives.
“People of the faith community have been at the forefront of the fight against gun violence in South Carolina,” it reads.
“Faith leaders and members of religious communities have the task of helping their friends, neighbors, and families put their lives back together after being shattered by gun violence.”
And that’s where our community stands today.
Bluffton is struggling.
Hundreds gathered a week ago at the football field where DJ Fields had worked out only two days earlier. Their feelings were raw.
A relative, Jennifer Morrow, said, “We forget that we’re human at the end of the day.”
TAKE IT BACK
Another speaker asked the adults present if they had built a relationship with a young person, just to help them along.
“It’s time for you men to stand up and get some kind of program together,” she said.
Bobcat football coach John Houpt said we need to see hundreds at youth football games, just to show them that they have support.
“Why can’t we just say ‘I love you’ to the kids?” he asked. “Why can’t the kids say ‘I love you’ to each other?”
The bottom line is that we, the majority, need to quit letting the inmates run the asylum.
We’ve felt the pain of Dwon Fields Sr. as he speaks through tears, urging anyone with information about the killing of his only son to share it, now.
Why are we adding that burden to the grieving father?
Morrow, the family member, said young people are “hanging out on social media, and you’re not saying anything.”
She asked students attending the memorial event to repeat after her:
“Today, I will no longer sit by and watch my community get destroyed.
“Today, I will take back my community.”
David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.
This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 6:30 AM.