Eve Carson was a model leader, student and human being. I was shocked and angry to hear about her death. I did not have the privilege of knowing Eve personally, but I had certainly heard a lot about her from friends at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In the days following the shooting, it was disturbing to think about the killers potentially free in our community. I was imagining barely human, cold-blooded murderers; who else could commit such a crime?
Learning that the suspected killers were 17- and 21-year-old kids committing a "random" robbery was almost as much of a shock as hearing about Eve's death. Just like 19-year-old Stephen Oates, who was arrested for the January murder of Duke graduate student Abhijit Mahato, Lawrence Lovett and Demario Atwater are young Durham residents. Lovett and Atwater were dropouts from Durham's Jordan High School - the alma mater to a number of Duke students each year.
Few people are likely to shed tears for these three individuals. All are Durham youths who already had long criminal records. Lovett's rap sheet, for someone just 17 years old, is appalling. In addition to Carson's murder, Durham authorities also charged him in the death of Mahato. Just two days before that shooting, he had been placed on probation for a previous robbery, and between January and March he was arrested and charged with nine different crimes.
At age 17, most of us were juniors or seniors in high school. We were finishing our SATs, playing on sports teams or participating in academic competitions and perhaps working part-time jobs. At that point, there was likely little question we would attend college after we graduated.
So where did their paths diverge from ours? It is hard to imagine a more startling picture of the stratification in our society or more tangible evidence that something is failing in the community. Children do not generally just become criminals.
Bad parenting and poor family values may be some of the most formative factors, but there is not much we can do to enforce better parenting. However, these kids managed to slip through the cracks in the public school system, the juvenile justice system and every social service and child support program supported by city, county, state and federal taxes.
Lawrence Lovette, Demario Atwater and Stephen Oates are likely to spend most of the rest of their lives in jail. If convicted, they certainly deserve a harsh sentence for their crimes. The sentencing may feel good and help alleviate a bit of our anger. However, putting three youths behind bars indefinitely can hardly be considered a victory for anyone. It is easy to play the blame game, pointing fingers at overburdened and underfunded institutions. There is definitely a need to re-examine these programs and fix their shortcomings. In the wake of the murders, we have already heard calls for an urgent investigation into Durham's gang problems and a look at the parole and probation systems. It will be up to all Durham citizens to make sure the pressure on this and other initiatives continues even after the media hype from the murders wanes.
But long-run political solutions are not enough, and no amount of our collective anger will stop the next juvenile delinquents from becoming murderers. The young men committing these crimes are the same age as Duke students and are living just a few miles from campus. It is not acceptable for us to leave change to an impersonal political system.
Unless we are content allowing social divides to grow, everyone in the Duke community has an obligation to become directly involved to bridge those divides. Nothing could set a better example than legions of Duke students - black and white, rich and poor, athletes and engineers - directly involved in the lives of Durham's young and needy populations.
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