Tragedy has struck my neighborhood again. This is next door to my home. I've known the victim and his assailant since they were little boys. He was a good guy, went to college on a full ride scholarship and was trying hard to make a good life for himself. There are many things Greensboro could have done to prevent this needless killing. I'll not say more for now.
Update: The parts the media aren't telling you.
Darren, the young man who did the killing has been mentally disabled his entire life. He has the mind of a child. I've known him over 20 years and his family has always been the best of neighbors.
Like I noted above, his diseased brother, Derek went to college on a full ride scholarship and was trying to get ahead.
One local television station reported that neighbors said Darren had been a problem in the neighborhood. They never talked with me and I live next door to Darren, Derek and their mother. The neighbors the media talked to have been problems themselves and have been arrested numerous times. These same neighbors often went out of their way to antagonize Darren even though everyone in the neighborhood knew of his mental disabilities.
Anything to sensationalize a story, I guess.
Darren had been in trouble many times. That much is true. And even though he was mentally disabled and drew a monthly check from Social Security for his disability since he turned 18 years old, the courts responded by putting him in jail time and time again instead of putting him in a place that could help him. Each trip to jail only hardened him and made him worse than before. Despite his mental disabilities he was never violent until he went to prison and learned how to become violent.
Darren was never a problem as long as he had a father figure around. But after his step father and then my father died, Darren became harder and harder for his mother to handle. Why is there no place in Greensboro to help young men like Darren? Why has this city failed us again and again while always having plenty of money for performing arts centers and incentives to rich developers? Can we not see our children are out most valuable asset? Why are we not investing in our children?
I know first hand the pain of loosing a son. It happens all too often here in east Greensboro. Now my next door neighbor, Diane looses 2 sons. Like the murder of Reginald Demarcus Wrenn, I expect a short crime story from the local media and nothing more.
Update 2: I did a long simultaneous interview with Morgan Hightower of WFMY-2 and a crew from WXII-12 today in an effort to set the record straight. I've yet to see if and what WXII published but what WFMY published was no more than a deliberate attempt to hang a very troubled young man whose problems were at least in part, caused by the court system and the City of Greensboro. If you believe in Karma then you've no doubt Ms Hightower will be haunted by the ghost of Derek Deontay Blacknall for the rest of her life.
