While news of the Saugus shooting was spreading yesterday, I was deep in a four-hour conversation with a big homie who had been shot at point blank range three different times as a youth.
At age 16, a bullet grazed his spine and left him in a wheelchair. He was told he would never walk again. But then he woke up one day a year+ later with sensation having returned to his legs. So he got himself back on his feet.
Slow, in leg braces, and on crutches, he got caught in a rival 'hood not too much later. Next thing he knew, someone was standing over him, pumping bullets into him. Trying to cover his head, he took 4 bullets to the forearm that would have otherwise been buried in his brain.
The third time, he got hit with a spray of buckshot in his back. Luckily, the impact was softened by his leather jacket and sweatshirt. But he could still hear the buckshot sizzling his skin while he was laying on the ground, he says.
Now 53, he's worse for the wear and walks with some difficulty. Though he says he's just happy to be walking at all.
We talked at length about the history of his gang and its past wars, but what we were essentially talking about was the conditions that shaped its soldiers - the loss, trauma, pain, anger, despair, fear, lack of opportunity, etc. that locked them in place.
Most striking was the fact that one of the first things he had asked for in the new space where he now works to break that cycle was first aid lessons to learn how to help stop bleeding.
A key complaint folks in the 'hood have is that the ambulance doesn't come when you need it. And b/c first responders perceive gang shootings as volatile situations, they may arrive but not actually get out and attend to the victim immediately.
Coming home and seeing the Saugus news was both heartbreaking and a reminder of the disparity in how mass shootings are treated. "Gang-related shooting" is code for "we don't have to care about this b/c they brought it on themselves."
And the fact that those mass casualties generally accumulate over weeks, months, or even years makes them that much easier to dismiss.
Meanwhile, we lament kids having to do mass shooter drills but don't talk about how kids desperate for a sense of security in communities where gangs are prevalent often find themselves drawn to gangs for protection because there are too few other resources they can call upon.
Again, none of this is to diminish the horror of school shootings. My heart goes out to Saugus families.
But seeing the lockdown of Fremont the other day - after a gang-related incident saw armed gang members show up there - & the lack of concern for the kids that have grown up having navigate contested streets & spaces or how that shapes their life choices & chances is... a lot.
