Friday, February 09, 2007

Postcard from New Orleans Hell

Words fall to the floor, insufficient. Powerless. Bile rises. As does blood pressure.

What the @#$! can you say to this?

Other than "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Lord, have mercy.

From
The (Hell New Orleans) Times Picayune:

Seventeen-year-old Clarence Johnson lost a fistfight, and he walked away.

Then he went to his mother’s apartment, police said, where she kept a home with cocaine, a gun and a picture of her young son smiling, holding a pistol and a wad of cash.

His mother sent him back out with the gun, police said, and clear instructions: Get revenge.

Johnson did as he was told, police said, getting a ride from a friend to the corner of Simon Bolivar and Clio streets in Central City, where he waited for the boy who had beaten him up to come out of a corner po-boy shop. When the teen emerged, Johnson lit him up with several gunshots, leaving 17-year-old Robert Dawson lying dead near a street corner.

Dawson had returned to New Orleans just four hours earlier from Katrina-induced exile in Dallas.

Johnson remained at large Thursday, while his mother, Vanessa Johnson, 44, was in jail on second-degree murder charges after being picked up by police the night before at her apartment in the 2500 block of Erato Street, part of the Guste public housing development.

Police said Vanessa Johnson played a principal part in the murder, in a disturbing scenario that police said underscores their inability to prevent killings in a street culture that embraces deadly retaliation.

“No police department can make up for that degree of deficient parenting,” police spokesman Sgt. Joe Narcisse said. “Even with our best-laid plans, these type of incidents cause us great pause. What more can a department do to prevent these type of incidents?”

Robert Dawson and his mother spent 10 hours on a bus from Dallas on Wednesday and returned to their hometown about 3:30 p.m., relatives said. Four hours later, Dawson became the city’s 21st murder victim of 2007.

Late in the morning Thursday, his mother, Dorothy Dawson, 54, milled around the site of her son’s murder, near the pool of his dried blood, trading hugs and condolences with friends. She said she had health problems, and can’t read or write. Her son had been her caretaker. She described a somewhat shy boy who gave one-word answers and loved sports. The youngest of three children, Robert Dawson was the man of a single-parent house.

“He handled my business, made sure I got my medicine and paid my bills,” his mother
said. “He took good care of me.”

(snip)

Minutes later, at a family friend’s house several blocks away, Dawson hugged his mother and said he’d see her later, Dorothy Dawson said. He said he was going to play basketball with his buddies. He didn’t mention the fistfight, and she saw no sign of anything wrong.

The exchange between Johnson and his mother contrasted sharply, according to police.

“He went inside and told his mom about the fight,” Narcisse said. “Then she armed him with a gun. She instructed him to go outside and ‘kill them all.’”

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