"THIS HAS GOT TO STOP"

Did anyone see the news the other night where the brother of yet another young victim of violence was talking to reproters? It made my heart bleed and my soul weep. Through his tears this young black man was imploring "Why do these things happen? We see other families on the telly about it and now look, we are the family on the telly." He then went on to say "Something has to be done to stop this. It isn't the police. It isn't racial. It is black people doing it to ourselves and each other!"

God bless that young man!

I must say that every time I see another news story about another youngster - regardless of their colour, race or creed - who has been shot or stabbed, another young life being snuffed out, another mindless, crazy, soul-destroying waste of a fellow human, my heart just goes out to their families, their communities, even their attackers who obviously think that, just like in the movies, anyone who is fatally wounded actually just gets up and goes off set as soon as the cameras stop rolling. But it doesn't happen like that. Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwartzeneger and Mel Gibson may walk through a hale of bullets in their films and survive then go home to their farms or their mansions and their families but in Real Life, the victims remain exactly that - victims, and their demise unwittingly creates other victims in the shape of a mourning family, a grieving mother, a tearful brother saying "This has got to stop!"

How very right he is. How very open and honest he is. How very human he is. How very much he suffers now that his Bobby has gone. How very much his words slice into my subconcious and hopefully into the subconcious of every single human being before more kids die, more kids kill and more families are left in shatters. My heart aches at the madness of it all.

I know this is heavy stuff for 8.30 in the morning but that young man has haunted my thoughts and even my dreams - I awoke, heart thumping and in a cold sweat of terror at midnight after dreaming I'd been shot. It was still so vivid that I was actually reciting my address to the emergency services as I awoke and all I could hear was this weeping young man saying over and over again like an unhappy echo "This has got to stop!"

He is right. It has.