Another Gun, Another Kid

Another gun, another bullet, another fifteen-year-old lay dead in the streets. His body was stretched out on the street where he had fallen. No one thought to cover it. No one knelt beside him. No one held his hand or head or offered a prayer. The loud staccato of police radios, the roaring engine of a passing car, the wailing siren of an approaching ambulance -- these noises masked the silence into which Torrey Milon had descended. Squad cars parked obliquely; their flashing lights swept the street. Uniformed officers paced this way and that. A news photographer bent awkwardly, trying to get the best angle of this scene. Neighbors gathered, but were kept at a distance.

A good kid, we are told. A high school freshman, a good student, the son and brother, the nephew and cousin of a loving family. He was biking home from the South Minneapolis community center when he was shot. No obvious reason has emerged. Though his slaying might be “gang-related”, family, friends and neighbors who knew him deny vehemently that he was a member of any gang. (And what difference would it make?) For his family and friends, anguish, grief and the fearful question of “Why?” make this Holy Week especially painful, and Easter problematic.  

At the site where Torrey Milon died, a neighbor erected a wooden cross. He painted on it the words, “Be With God,” and also “Please, we must stop killing each other.” The traffic has been steady at this little shrine in the center of a struggling neighborhood. Kids and adults have stopped, and bus drivers, police officers and total strangers. Figurines and flowers have been placed by the cross, and messages that say, “We miss you,” and “I love you,” and “God bless you.”

The neighbor who placed the cross is Charles Steen, a burly newspaper press operator who also bakes cookies for kids, cops and fire fighters. “I keep thinking that this is my fault and your fault,” he said. “We got caught up in having the nicer car, the better job, and we’ve forgotten the important things. Kids like Torrey are paying the price for our neglect. I had to do something. I didn’t want people to just see bloodstains on the street where the boy had died.” The world needs less rage and more goodies, he believes. “The answer is not more jails, more cops,” he said. The answer is to keep gymnasiums open late at night so kids have constructive places to go. The answer is to hire people to teach kids skills such as how to fix cars or play musical instruments. “The answer,” according to Steen, “is more chocolate chip cookies.”

(Written in Minneapolis, March 1996)