Disabled Boy Shot To Death For Wearing Red Shoes
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Three men are now in custody after murdering a teen with developmental disabilities in front of his mother because they didn’t like the color of his shoes, according to the LAPD.
Police say that on the morning of May 29, 19-year-old Tavin Price went into a smoke shop in South LA to buy a soda and was confronted by men who asked him about his red shoes and his gang affiliation, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Cops say Price ignored the men and returned to a nearby car wash, where he was shot four times in front of his mother and a family friend. Alleged shooter Kanasho Johns, 27, was arrested in Texas yesterday and has been charged with murder, as have Dwight Smith, 30, and Kevin Johnson, 25,ABC7 reports.
Police say Price had nothing to do with gangs and just happened to be wearing red shoes. “There are seldom times where we see senseless tragedies … where a young man is killed simply because of the color of his shoes,” an LAPD spokesman says, per NBC Los Angeles. “We thought those days were past us.”
After investigators held a press conference yesterday, Price’s mother said she still visits her son in the cemetery every day and still hears his final words,KTLA reports. “Everything I hear is Tavin saying, ‘Mommy, am I going to be all right? Mommy, I’m not going to die, am I?’ That’s all that I hear every day,” she said. “I’ve got to live with that for the rest of my life. That’s torture. You robbed me of my baby.”
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I guess the angels are wearing his then? Un-fucking-believable.
I’ve been led to believe, perhaps erroneously, that check free gun show purchases account for a very small percentage of sales. But you’re quite right about self protection being minimal. I’m hardly Billy the kid when it comes to fast draw particularly with a concealed weapon, which by the way, I don’t do.
The chance of having your life ruined even if you do shoot an assailant in self defense is high – even if you’re acquitted and as I’ve never been attacked in all these many decades – the idea is off the table for me. I’ve seen that even firing a warning shot into the ground can get you 20 years in Florida. Merely showing a gun is almost as bad. Telling someone to go away because you have a gun can get you arrested. It makes me laugh when I hear we have no gun laws in Florida! No, my flintlocks stay at home, Dogs are safer. Who’s going to mess with my Shih-Tzu?
Right you are again that some areas even in the same city are the safest anywhere and some the deadliest. Finding out why seems to be difficult. Last time I checked El Paso was the safest, texas gun laws and all. That leads me to thin that reducing the murder rate is not as easy as some would argue. It’s not just about guns and background checks. Chicago has some of the deadliest and some of the safest neighborhoods all in one place – and is the current “murder capitol” Again we need to clean up these bad areas of crime and gangs which should go a long way further than pretending gun laws make guns disappear or that criminals can’t buy or steal them.
I would still like to know how suicides factor into the statistics. Somebody out to end it all isn’t going to be deterred by background checks or waiting periods and I have to stand up for the right to end one’s life. I don’t think it should appear on the books along with murder.
Again you’re right abut the unnecessary fear and for that I fault the media and of course our friends at the NRA. We may be living at the safest time in US history.
The bottom line is that we have a complex problem, a cultural problem including an alienated, and indigent population, remnants of the Civil War are still with us and that means dreams of armed rebellion. I think our live of guns is independent of the NRA and again goes back to the Civil War and before — and then there’s our War on Drugs that’s funded gangs and inspired gangs since it began.
Most of the solutions I hear are too simplistic and I think that’s because we get them from organizations with narrow agendas and no motivation to tell the whole story.
Let me qualify the statement Glenn. Of the approximately eight to nine thousand people killed each year by firearms roughly one third of them are killed by the so called criminal element. The concept of self protection is largely over rated. Most of the deaths come in the form of domestic violence, accidents, and suicides. I have no illusions that requiring a universal background check will instantly have an impact on any of these. However, in some states, my state, Alabama, gun shows can sell to anyone without background checks. If I am not mistaken Mississippi and Georgia are much the same. Alabama is now poised to pass a free carry option which means that one can carry a weapon open or concealed whenever they choose. We already have an open carry state law if a person is on public property.I am pretty sure that Texas and Colorado have the same. Right now a person has to have a permit to carry a firearm in their vehicle but that will change when they pass the free carry law.
As far as safety in this country goes that all depends on where you live. If you are a WASP then you likely are pretty safe. If you have enough money that you are not scratching for rent money every week you are pretty safe. Anything else you are living a high risk life. But even those who live in relatively safe areas live in fear which, at least in my opinion, drives the desire the be armed to the teeth. I personally choose not to keep firearms in my home because I have saw up close and person the amount of damage and pain they have caused through a four year stint in the Marines and 6 years as a cop. I do, however, have a big dog that tends to not like people and a wicked nine iron that I keep handy. If that does work, well I an old guy any way.
I get a bit confused because Federal law requires federally licensed firearms dealers (but not private sellers) to initiate a background check on the purchaser prior to sale of a firearm.. The dealer fills out his form 4473 which requires my name, address, date of birth, government-issued photo ID, and puts in a book the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background check transaction number, make/model/serial number of the firearm, and a short affidavit stating that the purchaser is eligible to purchase firearms under federal law. Most states require background checks at gun shows. Florida is one of them. Maybe I’m wrong, but I had to go through all kinds of things to get a carry permit including fingerprinting and some training. When I used to live in Illinois decades ago, there was a required “gun owners ID card” needed to purchase guns, ammunition and I think reloading supplies too. It was a photo ID card and required affidavits and checks.
It’s true, there are subjects in the US that cannot be talked about without fire and brimstone, but I’m not at all convinced either side of the gun control argument is all that honest and doesn’t invent or tune up statistics.
There is no requirement if I would give the gun to my wife or sell it to my son or to anyone else however. Although difficult to implement – perhaps impossible since guns don’t carry titles, I’m not sure what the results might be. But we should remember that Mr. Roof bought his gun at a Federaly licensed gun dealer and there should have been a three day waiting period and a background test which since he had no record he must have passed.
Gangs remain a scourge and even without guns they’re a cause of large amounts of violent crime. But I almost want to use capital letters here, but America has certainly not become more dangerous and to aggravate the statement that it’s more dangerous than a war zone is just the sort of hyperbole that prevents substantive discussion. There were hardly 325 million Americans involved in the war which makes that statistic nugatory. By the way, that’s a statement the NRA uses all the time.
Well one can say that this was not the fault of the gun but the fault of the person who had the gun. I could not agree more. Guns do not kill people but people with guns kill people. The trick here is how do we keep people who should not have guns to kill people from having guns. Well, we can not do that completely. The sad part of this entire debate is that no one who has the authority really wants to start trying, on a national scale, to control that particular problem. Mention gun control or universal background checks and the conversation is over, kaput! The NRA turns loose it’s hellhounds and its zealots and one would think that the world had just declared war. The screaming, gnawing, and gnashing of teeth brings forth foaming of the mouth like rabid animals. Why those that say they are good honest people who just want to own guns for protection or collecting work themselves into such a frenzy can only be attributed to extreme paranoia paired with a massive amount of insecurity and distrust of a government many of them depend upon to protect us from foreign invasion.
The case for gun ownership is, of course, based on the Second Amendment of The Constitution. However, the rights under the Constitution are subject to limitation, even the Second Amendment rights. The federal and states have passed laws that already impinge on that amendment by denying convicted felons the right to own firearms as well as the right to vote for certain crimes. Keep in mind that the conviction does not take away their citizenship, but it does start limiting rights granted under the Constitution. It would be no great leap to require a background check for someone who purchases a firearm from any firearms dealer or private citizen. Will that stop all of the firearm deaths, nope, but it is a start. It shows that we the people care and are putting people on notice that we the people and our government gives a rat’s ass about people with guns killing people. Then maybe, just maybe, people will start to view guns and violence just a little bit differently. Maybe then people will notice if a nutcase starts walking around with a gun and they will report it. How many lives saved is it worth to make this change? Is it worth trying if it saves the life of one person? One can level all the arguments they wish at not doing anything and it still comes down to the fact that America has become more dangerous than a war zone when it comes to guns. More than twice the number of Americans are killed each year with guns than were killed in Iraq in 8 years at war.That is just wrong headed.
Would that gang warfare diminish if they were forced out of the drug trade by reforming our drug policies? Some people are killed as collateral damage in the War on Drugs and it sounds like this poor kid was one of them.
Tell me again that the problem is guns.
These bastards are sick with an entitlement AND empowerment disease that has become epidemic in the US. The “I’m better than you” and the “it’s OK to kill” attitude Burr Deming commented on earlier this week on another post. This is a disease spread by divisive politics, gang warfare and preachers, demeaning others to the point of inhumanity has become the norm, their crazy fringe are happy to follow the line to extreme.
Shot because he wore red shoes….. in front of his mother…. he disrespected them….. lunacy.