[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 89 (Friday, June 28, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6299-S6300]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE SHOOTING DEATHS OF DETROIT-AREA CHILDREN

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, children are being killed in our cities in 
record numbers. This year, in Los Angeles, 25 have been killed. The 
rates are the same in Houston, New York, Chicago, and in every other 
city where illegal drugs are plentiful and good jobs are scarce, where 
access to a better life is hard but access to a gun is easy.
  Parents put their children to sleep in bathtubs where they might be 
safer from driveby shootings. Children find guns in homes and on 
playgrounds, with tragic results. Drug dealers go gunning for each 
other and don't care who gets killed in the crossfire.
  So far this year, 22 children have been wounded by gunfire in my 
hometown of Detroit, in the metropolitan area. Ten children have been 
shot and killed. Statistics alone cannot convey the extent of this 
ongoing tragedy. But here, briefly, are some of the sorrowful and grim 
stories of these children, their families, and their pain.
  On February 25, Ajanee Pollard, 7 years old, was shot and killed, 
allegedly by a man who was upset that he had just purchased--with two 
counterfeit $20 bills--a defective radio from a friend of Ajanee's 
uncle. Ajanee, her uncle, her mother, and three siblings were getting 
ready to go shopping when one of the three men charged with the murder 
allegedly fired shots from an M1 rifle into the car Ajanee's mother was 
driving.
  Ajanee was a second grade student at Thomas Houghten Elementary 
School in northwest Detroit. Ajanee had been named Student of the 
Month, was a midfielder in the local youth soccer league, and enjoyed 
going to Bible school at Genesis Evaneglical Lutheran Church.
  Ajanee's 6-year-old brother Jason had to have his pancreas and part 
of his intestines removed from the wounds he suffered as a result of 
the shooting. Both of Ajanee's sisters suffered gunshot wounds to the 
legs, and her mother was treated for injuries as well.
  On March 23, Destinee Thomas, 3 years old, was shot and killed in her 
home while watching Mickey Mouse cartoons. A man armed with an AK-47 
riddled the house with bullets.
  Two men have been arrested and charged with the murder. According to 
police and press reports, they had been involved in a ``turf battle'' 
with two drug dealers from a rival street gang.
  On March 28, Alesia Robinson, 16 years old and a junior at Kettering 
High School, sat on the front porch of her home on Detroit's east side 
while her boyfriend played with a gun. According to police, Alesia--who 
wanted to become a pediatrician--asked her boyfriend to put the gun 
away. Instead, he pointed it at her face and pulled the trigger.
  On April 3, Christopher James, 11 years old, was killed by a single 
gunshot wound to the head. His 12-year-old half-brother has been 
charged in juvenile court with manslaughter. According to family 
members, the two were playing with a .22 caliber revolver they had 
found on a playground and that the shooting was an accident.

[[Page S6300]]

  On April 10, Brianna Caddell, 8 years old, was shot and killed while 
she was sleeping in her bed. Brianna, her mother Pamela Martin, and her 
grandmother Dorothy Caddell were fixtures at Truth Evangelical Lutheran 
Church.
  Antoine Foote also involved in drug turf wars, was charged with her 
murder. According to police, he sprayed more than two dozen rounds at 
the house with an AK-47.
  Brianna was a third grader at the John C. Marshall Elementary School. 
One of Brianna's classmates, Oshinique Mapp, wants to become a 
policewoman or doctor or teacher so she can ``change the bad people.'' 
Another classmate, Jeremiah Russell, wants to go to college so he can 
get away from the drug dealers in his neighborhood.
  On April 19, Irisha Keener, 3 years old, was shot in the head by her 
mother, as the two lay in bed. Her mother then committed suicide.
  On April 30, Cherrel Thomas, 15 years old, was shot and killed while 
riding in the back seat of a Chrysler Concorde. Cherrel, by the way, 
was a freshman at McKenzie High School where she played trombone and 
baritone tuba in the school marching band and jazz ensemble. Terrill 
Johnson and Jesse Freeman were charged with that murder.
  On May 26, Tiffany Taylor, 15 years old, was fatally shot in the head 
while riding in a car in Mt. Clemens with friends coming home from a 
roller skating party at the Great Skate Rink in Roseville. Tiffany was 
a freshman at Roseville Junior High School, where she was on the honor 
roll and led afterschool programs. Police believe that someone in an 
abandoned house frequently used by drug dealers and addicts fired five 
rounds from a handgun at Tiffany as she rode by--for no apparent 
reason.
  On June 2, DeAntoine Trammell, 10 years old, was shot and killed in 
his grandmother's apartment on Detroit's east side. According to 
eyewitnesses, the person who killed him came to the house drunk and 
distraught, threatened to commit suicide, then fired two shots into the 
kitchen wall instead. The bullets pierced the wall and went into an 
adjacent bedroom. Moments later, Shawn Trammell, DeAntoine's 14-year-
old brother, carried his bloody body into the kitchen. The boys' mother 
collapsed in shock. Shawn shouted out, ``Come on, Mama, come on. He's 
breathing!'' They rushed DeAntoine to a clinic but were turned away 
because it is not a trauma center. DeAntoine died a day later at St. 
John Hospital.

  DeAntoine was a fifth-grader at Bow Elementary School. His basketball 
team was scheduled to receive a trophy the day after he died. He loved 
sports, video games, cartoons, and pizza, and often helped out in the 
school cafeteria.
  The week before DeAntoine was killed, he had been paired with Keefe 
Brooks, 48, a Bloomfield Hills lawyer, as part of the V.I.P Mentors 
program. According to the Detroit Free Press, Brooks wanted to show 
DeAntoine the possibilities life held for him. ``I had hoped to expose 
him to successful people in the city, to help him build positive images 
and role models,'' Brooks said. ``I cannot bear the thought of my match 
having been taken from our world before I even got to know him. I 
cannot bear the thought of more children being slaughtered in our 
city.''
  Gun violence is still an epidemic in our cities. A teenager today is 
more likely to die of a gunshot wound than of all natural causes of 
disease. Yet we seem incapable of requiring background checks at gun 
shows even though the President said he would support doing so when he 
campaigned in 2000. We seem incapable of requiring gun manufacturers to 
include trigger locks with their products even though we can regulate 
just about every other product under the sun. We need to pass these 
common-sense measures to help stanch the flow of guns and blood in our 
cities. But the Attorney General files briefs that undermine the 
enforcement of existing hand gun control laws instead.
  As a Nation, we hope and pray that 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart will 
be returned to her home in Salt Lake City safe and sound. But as a 
Nation, we overlook the death of Ajanee, and Destinee, and Alesia, and 
Christopher, and Brianna, and Irisha, and Cherrel, and Tiffany, and 
DeAntoine. We haven't seen home videos of them on the evening news, but 
we should. Their families and friends and communities feel the anguish 
alone.
  Is it resignation? Worse yet, is it indifference? I hope neither.
  Some in Detroit have responded to the epidemic. The Detroit Police 
Department and the Wayne County Prosecutor have launched Project Safe 
Neighborhoods so that criminals who use guns will be prosecuted in 
federal courts. They have launched Project Destinee, which is an 
attempt to dismantle the two rival drug gangs whose members have been 
implicated in that child's murder. The city has Child Death Review 
Teams to learn everything possible about the murders. People are 
joining SOSAD, Save Our Sons And Daughters, an organization Clementine 
Barfield started after her son Derick was killed in 1986, and the 
Detroit chapter of the Million Mom March, which Shikha Hamilton runs. 
Other groups involved include the Neighborhood Service Organization, 
Youth Initiatives Project, and Pioneers for Peace.
  On Saturday, May 11, a massive community forum on violence was held 
at Second Ebenezer Baptist Church. On May 16, a group of 350 religious 
leaders met at the Northwest Activity Center to kick off their Positive 
Youth Development Initiative, a collaborative effort among government, 
religious, and community leaders to help at-risk children. On June 11, 
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick announced a six-point program to curb 
the violence.
  The funerals for the slain children have become impromptu community 
forums and rallies where people's determination and hope have 
commingled with their grief and outrage.
  The Poet Langston Hughes asked:

     What happens to a dream deferred?
     Does it dry up
     Like a raisin in the sun?
     Or fester like a sore--
     And then run?
     Does it stink like rotten meat?
     Or crust and sugar over--
     like a syrupy sweet?
     Maybe it just sags
     like a heavy load.
     Or does it explode?

  We have learned, sadly, that dreams deferred do explode--in gunfire. 
And we have seen, sadly, what happens when people don't even have the 
capacity or the chance to dream.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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