If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Stop. Listen to the fallen children:
Children like Raliek Springs, who starved to death because his mother bought drugs instead of baby formula.
Children like Diana Negron and Giovanni Rivera and James Sweat, innocent bystanders who got in the way of someone else's bullet.
Children like Stanley Zuber and Allison Johnson and David Smith, killed when friends toyed with guns that are all too available.
These children all died from violence last year in Philadelphia. How many of us even heard?
In the big city, we're used to people getting killed. It's sad. But that's the way it is.
Homicides happen every day. And most lives lost to violence get little attention in newspapers, on TV news - or in our hearts. Strangers' deaths are mere statistics. Only families and friends mourn - if even they do.
We should pay more attention when a child is killed. Given the times, it is naive to call all children innocents: Many are older, by all they have seen and done, than the children of generations past. But they are still children. And when a child is slain, it says something about us as a community. We are all the worse for it.
In 1992, there were 454 homicides in the city. Of those, 37 victims were kids aged 16 and younger.
Most were killed by guns. Some of the triggers were pulled by those who were kids themselves.
On average, three children were killed each month. The majority were black and male and poor.
Most were good kids.
Parents say that part of them died, too, when they buried their children.
Families have been turned upside-down and inside-out. If only they'd had a chance to say goodbye. Some family members had to be checked into hospitals to cope with their grief.
"I'm only one of hundreds or even thousands who have suffered like this," says Walter Ziolo Jr., whose youngest son was killed by a friend playing with a gun. "I'm a nobody. But my son was special to me."
Not all parents feel grief. Not all parents love their children. Some are angry enough to kill them.
Here are the stories of the murdered children of 1992, loved and unloved. It is not possible for each of us to care about all of them. Nor is it likely we will remember them all. But we should meet them and know our loss.
RALIEK SPRINGS
AGE: 4 MONTHS
CAUSE OF DEATH: STARVATION
Picture the starving children of Somalia.
Now picture baby Raliek Springs of Germantown.
