A Child Falls In A Hail Of Bullets

Many years ago, jazz singer Billie Holiday sang a controversial song about lynching called, “Strange Fruit.”  The song began, “Southern trees bear a strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”  Southern lynching is now largely a thing of the past.  Now its the streets of America’s inner cities which are speckled with blood.  

So many people die from gunshots in cities like Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis and Oakland that they often become anonymous--just black letters on a news page.  Residents have become numb and (dare I say) complacent to the non-stop carnage and loss of black life.  And yet, each homicide victim is somebody’s nephew; somebody’s grandchild and in this case...somebody’s son.  Christopher LaVell Jones was Brenda Grisham’s son.

On the evening of December 31st, 2010, 17-year old Christopher asked his mother to drive him to Burger King.  His mom obliged.  Family members piled into her car.  Christopher hopped in the back next to his young niece’s car seat.  

And then Brenda Grisham saw the ominous sight.  There were three young men standing behind a car.  They had automatic weapons.  Ms. Grisham’s only thought was to get her family to safety.  She ordered her daughter and son to run for the house.  Bullets started exploding all around them.  Christopher’s sister was the first one to be shot.  Christopher turned around to see if his mother and his baby niece were safe.  He suddenly fell face first.  Brenda Grisham also dove forward landing on Christopher’s back in an effort to shield her son from the bullets that the assault rifles were spitting.  Ms. Grisham’s daughter looked back and said, “Oh, my God!  One of you were shot!”  It was Christopher.  He had been shot in the head.  Bullets had penetrated his face and jaw.  His mother credits him for saving her life.  She says, “If he hadn’t stopped, I wouldn’t be here.”  

As it turned out, the gang members were targeting another youth in the neighborhood.  Ms. Grisham says, “They didn’t see Christopher that night.  They were just shooting.  They thought the target was in our house and they were shooting away at the house.”  Half of all people who get shot in Oakland are innocent.  They have nothing at all to do with what is going on in the streets.”  

(Next: A Peace Warrior Rises In The Mean Streets)