The Washington Post reports (emphasis added):
Zaire Kelly was returning home from a college prep course and was less than 300 feet from his front door when authorities said a man tried to rob him along a footpath in a small park in Northeast Washington.The 16-year-old Zaire -- a standout high school senior and track athlete -- used a pocket knife to defend himself Wednesday night, D.C. police said, and stabbed the attacker in the abdomen. Police said the would-be robber had a gun and shot Zaire once in the head....Police identified the assailant as Sequan Keyleo Gillis, 19, who had been freed from jail two weeks ago to await trial on a charge he took a vehicle without permission, and he had been wearing a court-ordered GPS ankle bracelet to track his movements.
It's certainly comforting that the criminal justice system was "track[ing] his movements" while he murdered a young black man with a world of promise.
This sort of preventable murder of African Americans -- preventable if we changed our thinking from naivete' and "community supervision" to a decent regard for the next victim -- has become so routine that it's difficult any longer to think of laxity as mere foolishness instead of head-in-the-sand racism.
This is a family photograph of Zaire Kelly:
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