[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 39 (Wednesday, April 13, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                            ONE TEEN'S VIEW

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, many young Americans are having 
their childhoods stolen from them. They are witnesses to brutal acts of 
random violence, living in fear for their safety, distracted from what 
should be an innocent, carefree time in their lives.
  One young man in Queens, NY has written a compelling piece describing 
his experience watching a close friend bleed to death after being shot 
on the street. Miguel Sanchez, 16, makes it clear that we have made an 
unforgivable mistake. We have tolerated a level of violence in our 
society that has now reached our children. They experience the loss of 
their loved ones at an alarming rate. As Miguel's words suggest, we 
cannot predict the effect such losses will have on young people's 
lives, on their ability to function in society, and more importantly on 
their ability to pursue happy lives untainted by the pain of such 
preventable losses. It is time to take real, thoughtful steps toward 
protecting our young people from the violence that permeates their 
daily lives.
  Mr. President, I ask to enter ``One Teen's View'' in the Record at 
this point.
  The article follows:

                            One Teen's View

     (Miguel Sanchez, 16, is a sophomore at Aviation High School 
     in Queens, New York, who wants to become a power-plant 
     mechanic. The only son in a family of 16 children, Miguel 
     moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic five 
     years ago)

       I know what violence is because I live with it every day. I 
     have seen people get robbed, shot, or even beat up just for 
     being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some people 
     believe that violence will stop if we can ``just get along,'' 
     to quote Rodney King. But a lot of people don't believe that 
     because they have not seen any action or help from the 
     government or the police.
       Last summer I experienced something no one likes to talk 
     about. A friend of mine was shot right in front of me and my 
     friends. Some of them were scared of being shot and ran. The 
     ones that stayed, including me, were afraid of getting shot 
     too, but we wouldn't leave our friend, Leslie, who was 
     bleeding. I ran for the ambulance. I was scared, mad, and 
     lucky, because the man didn't shoot at us. He ran into a 
     building instead.
       When I came back with the ambulance, I felt like it was too 
     late. What I remember most were her eyes, because she looked 
     at me as if she wanted to say something but couldn't. I held 
     her hand and I felt her grabbing my hand tighter. She kept 
     looking at me, and all I could say was ``I'm sorry,'' as if I 
     had been the one who shot her.
       She died in the hospital a week later. How the incident got 
     started doesn't really matter. There are really no good 
     reasons for shooting people. Just a lot of people with guns 
     and bad tempers.
       It doesn't even seem to matter if you take the guns away 
     because kids can always get another one as easy as they got 
     the first one. Kids today believe that having a gun in their 
     bag is something to be proud of. My message to them is, the 
     only thing a gun really gets you is trouble. I usually don't 
     get into fights and don't get close to people, because when I 
     get close to someone either they move or I lose them by 
     violence in the street. I had a friend, he got shot. I saw 
     him in the morgue. But I didn't see him. I only saw his body.
       Violence is not something you want to experience, even 
     once, and never on a daily basis. You become afraid of going 
     outside to play because of fear of getting beat up or 
     accidentally shot. When I wake up in the morning, I ask 
     myself, am I going to survive this day? So every day I try to 
     make it seem as if it is my last day on this earth. So far, 
     I've been lucky. I don't know when my luck is going to run 
     out.

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