After so many teen slayings, Twitter hashtag offers glimmer of hope
In some of Columbus’ toughest neighborhoods, kids have the grieving process down to a near-science.
A friend is shot and killed. Before police have even released the victim’s name, posts appear on Facebook. Photos go up on Instagram. Tribute videos show up on YouTube. Twitter handles are changed — “RIP whoever.”
If the death was in a public place, liquor bottles, stuffed animals and candles are placed on the corner or stoop or sidewalk. Airbrushed tribute T-shirts are ordered with such sentiments as “ Fly high,” “RIP,” “Gone too soon.”
The funeral is packed. Teenage girls and boys cry. Tattoos are etched on young skin.
And too soon, it happens again.
“I remember when they were little kids coming to funerals,” Cecil Ahad said of South Side youths he mentors. “And they’re still coming to funerals.”
Some children have already lost three or four peers in their young lives: Daequan Nix, 15, in 2010. E’stabonn Pitts, 17, in 2011. Kaewaun Coleman, 15; Isaiah Giles, 16; Lamont Frazier, 17, all this year.
Frazier, who was fatally shot on July 25, is the most-recent. Over the past few months, The Dispatch spoke to more than a dozen of his friends — all in their teens — about their losses.
They talk about “Going to be with Mont,” meaning they’re visiting the corner where Frazier’s body was found. Ask how many friends and family members have been killed, they quantify it only as “ too many.”
These South Side kids, though, say they want Frazier’s death to be different.
In the hours after he was shot and killed, #montsworld sprang up as the Twitter hashtag of their grief. Mont’s World is now a movement, they say — a campaign to end the cycle of retaliation, of beefs that turn deadly and take out their friends and family.
It has been attempted before. When teens gunned down Kaewaun Coleman near Linden-McKinley STEM Academy in January, his mom started the “Waun Gang” to honor his memory. That was supposed to be something positive, too. It was supposed to be a reminder that shooting someone is not the answer.
But it has turned into another dividing line that has led to more fights and conflicts. “Waun Gang turned into something it’s not supposed to be,” said Enfinati “Finni” Hill, 15. “Now they fight, they shoot.”
The kids say they know that the goals of Mont’s World also will be a challenge. Already, territorial issues have arisen, with amateur rap songs and Twitter postings threatening violence to anyone who challenges Frazier’s legacy.
“If someone disrespects anyone you love, you’ll want to retaliate,” said 16-year-old Euraezshia Powell.
Two of Frazier’s acquaintances, ages 17 and 18, have been charged in his death. If they weren’t locked up, his friends say, someone might have already tried to retaliate.
“They would have been dead,” said 11-year-old Diome Heath, Hill’s brother. Other teens have used Frazier’s name to try to stir up violence.
“Somebody said, ‘F--- Lamont,’” Hill said. “I told everyone, ‘Don’t respond. They’re always going to say dumb stuff.’”
Such words encourage their parents and other adults.
“I’m not saying they can fix the whole neighborhood,” said Amberley Smith, the mother of Hill and Diome. “But we need a small group of people … who are not tolerant of the violence.”