Cecilia
Marie Trapuzzano was
welcomed into the world in an Indianapolis hospital, the same weekend the
National Rifle Association (NRA) held their annual national conference in the
city.
She’ll be
raised, alone, by Jennifer Trapuzzano.
The mother
is the widow of Nathan Trapuzzano; daughter Cecilia is the first and only child
of Nathan and Jennifer.
He never got
to see her face.
Cecilia will
never get to see his face, hear his laugh, or see the love he had for his wife
and her mother.
A black
16-year-old, Simeon Adams, has been charged in the murder (execution) of
Nathan. During his first arraignment hearing, Adams was captured by both film
and camera laughing.
To my
knowledge, Nathan’s name or how he died was addressed at the NRA National
Conference in Indianapolis.
Nathan was, after all, just a white guy. Simeon Adams, a career criminal
at the age of 16, is black. The exact color Robert Farago of The Truth About
Guns website hopes to attract to the hopelessly white NRA [Question
of the Day: How Can the NRA Become Less White?,TheTruthAboutGuns.com,
4-25-14]
His death serves no
purpose in the narrative of gun violence. Had he been just another black victim
of gun violence in Indianapolis, well, there’s your story.
Sadly, Farago would
have found Adams a more suitable attendee of the NRA Conference than
Trapuzzano: the only way you make something less white is by having more blacks
(or non-whites).
Those actually utilizing guns for violence in Indianapolis would find the NRA too white; instead, they’d feel right at home in the NBA. Yes Robert Farago, your precious, potential black recruits (to add colorful legitimacy to the NRA) are responsible for virtually all the gun violence – fatal and nonfatal – in Indianapolis. [Indy on pace toward 150 criminal homicides, IndyStar.com, 4-28-14]:
Indianapolis hit a troubling benchmark Friday as the city recorded its 50th criminal homicide victim this year — a statistic that reflects a surge of violent fatalities that's been climbing over the past two years.
The latest victim, an Indianapolis man in his early 30s who police suspect was gunned down during a drive-by killing Thursday on the Northwestside, died in a hospital Friday morning from multiple gunshot wounds.
Hours earlier, another man died in a volley of gunfire late Thursday on the Eastside.No one has been arrested in either slaying.
If the slayings continue at their current rate, it will put Indianapolis on a pace to reach at least 150 criminal homicides — well above the 125 it recorded at the end of 2013, which was the highest in seven years.
City officials in Indianapolis, meanwhile, are trying various ways to stem the bloodshed. Last month, Mayor Greg Ballard outlined a new campaign called "Your Life Matters," which he characterized as a community-led initiative that officials hope will motivate at-risk youths to get off the streets and find jobs or volunteer programs. The campaign is geared toward black-on-black violence.
Ballard said the increase in homicides last year and early this year — after what he said were three consecutive years of fewer than 100 — "deeply concern me."
David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said the source of such violent criminal activity comes from fluid, disorganized groups — made up of only a fraction of a city's population.
"The groups will technically represent under half a percent of a city's population," Kennedy said. "That under half a percent is connected with 50, 60, 75 percent of all the killings."
Kennedy said tensions between different groups throughout a city can often account for flare-ups in violence — sometimes leading to a spike in deaths for a year or two before things calm down.
The Rev. Charles Harrison, leader of the Ten Point Coalition, an inner-city peacekeeping group, had his own reasoning for what's behind the increasing level of violence and bloodshed in Indianapolis.
"I don't think that everybody that's making the decisions fully understand the problems in the community," said Harrison. "We are not addressing the root causes."
Harrison said much of the crime is driven by young black males who do not have role models, an education or employment opportunities. Drugs and gangs also are fueling violence on the streets. The outspoken pastor also called out the black community, saying leaders cannot "hide our heads in the sand" when it comes to a breakdown of families that leaves many young men adrift.
Harrison said he was hopeful two or three years ago after a focus on getting police officers and community members into high-crime neighborhoods, where they could get on top of conflict before it turned deadly.
"In 2009 and 2010 and even into 2011, I felt like things were heading in the right direction," he said. "But then, there seemed to be a shift in strategies, where much more focus was placed on re-entry and there was less emphasis on really intervening in street violence."Stop.
Cut the bullshit.
Nathan Trapuzzano was a white male, whose daughter will now grow up fatherless thanks to the actions of one of these black males responsible for virtually all the violence in Indianapolis (a city that is 29 percent black…).
The NRA meeting in Indianapolis was compared to a Nazi Rally by the Daily Kos; only SBPDL will point out the violence in Indianapolis, the gun violence, is perpetrated exclusively by people who look like the majority of the participants in a National Basketball Association (NBA) game.
One writer for the Daily Beast attended the conference, and while he wrote mockingly of overweight white men peering longingly at guns, the only people creating a war zone in Indianapolis (and other parts of America) are blacks. The same people lionized for their exploits on the basketball court, are working overtime to use firearms in the same manner white liberals fantasize a white conservative will soon mimic. [Preparing for War in Indianapolis: Inside the NRA Plot to Terrify America: In a cavernous exhibition hall, as far as the eye can see is all the assault weaponry you’ll need should Red Dawn hit your town. Welcome to the NRA convention—and prepare to get scared, Daily Beast, 4-28-14]:
Some weapons were in glass display cases, while others were right out in front to touch at will. At first the constant clicking of triggers and magazines being secured in place was a bit unsettling. Soon it just blended into the background, What was hard to not notice was the look of glee on so many men’s faces—white men, for the most part, generally of less than athletic appearance—whose communal id had been unleashed. They looked like kids in a candy store, boys with toys, with a type of porn their political ideology can get behind.Anarchy has already hit 83 percent black Detroit; it’s already leveling zip codes and communities in Indianapolis where white people are as a rare a sight as they are on the hardwood of the NBA.
All white liberals want to do is discredit white gun owners, without daring to notice just who is using firearms for violence.
While the Daily Beast bemoaned the “NRA Plot to Terrify America” anti-gun protestors in Indianapolis gathered to bemoan the number of black people gunning down other blacks in the city. [Gun control supporters send message to NRA, TheIndyChannel.com, 4-24-14]:
Gun control supporters gathered Thursday on the eve of the annual National Rifle Association convention in downtown Indianapolis to plead for the gun rights organization's help in stemming a rising tide of homicides in the host city.
"We have too many young people with guns and they're using them to settle disputes," said Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence President Stephen Dunlop.Dunlop told an audience of about two dozen people that the only answer is to keep guns off the streets. Other speakers said something needs to be done to prevent young black men from shooting other young black men, when both are often teenagers.
Dunlop said that policies endorsed by the NRA haven't worked for Indianapolis and he wants the NRA to know about the rate of homicides that has risen over the past three years in the city.
"The one thing that really works is to remove the guns from the streets," he said.Remove guns from streets?
That's the plan?
The better plan is assessing why black people are so trigger happy...[The NRA way: celebrate buying guns in a city where 4 people just got shot: At its convention, the NRA won't dwell on ending inner-city gun violence – because it's too busy scaring people into thinking they need more guns, The Guardian, 4-25-14]:
"Enforce existing laws" is a solution to inner-city gun crime only if you believe that it's not guns that are the problem, but the people that use them. Those who advocate the solution assume, understandably, that illegal guns are just a part of the web of criminality that blankets all urban areas. Take the criminals out of the equation, the logic goes, and you'll get rid of gun violence.
But most inner-city gun violence isn't directly related to ongoing criminal activity. It's violence that stems from arguments over bragging rights or girls or wounded pride: one study of urban youth violence found that 42% of violent altercations stemmed primarily from "being disrespected," 31% from the offender's girlfriend being insulted. In firearm homicides specifically, "other arguments" accounted for almost two and half times (1,801) as many deaths as juvenile gang killings (681) and five times as many as those involving narcotics trade (311).
The young black men who die from gun violence are dying not because they're so different from young people people everywhere, but because they're so much like them. They argue about the things young men everywhere argue about. They just have guns.