I moved from Salinas to Davis four years ago in part to be in a university town and closer to family, but also because I felt that I had done everything I could to counter the gang activity in Salinas. I had worked as an early intervention resource teacher, making home visits and planning programs for both parents and students. I had marched in peace rallies, spoken before the city council about the need for less emphasis on police action and more emphasis on library and recreation services. I had tried to be a good neighbor in my own gang-troubled neighborhood. I had also attended funerals, too many, of people shot in gang retaliation. I know something about gang activity.

For example, I spent time with a 6-year-old girl who needed grief counseling. A gang had shot and killed her mother, a retaliatory action. Then the gang burned the grandmother’s home where the little girl was staying while her father was incarcerated. This child lost her mother, her clothing, her dog and was traumatized, artificially cheerful. She broke open emotionally when she and I were doing a farm puzzle and she picked up the piece with the farm dog on it. That was when she could cry uncontrollably. Even her pet had been destroyed. That is retaliation for you. No end, just spiraling and spiraling.

Gang behavior is based on “you took out one of ours, so now we’ll take out one of yours.” Mothers of gang members mourn and are not consoled when the death of their sons is avenged, when the killing continues.

So what, then, is the state of California modeling if it continues to believe that someone who has killed another person merits being murdered himself? We can place abstract tags on it, call it capital punishment, an execution; regardless of the label, it is taking a life, killing, murder, state-approved retaliation.

I’ve seen too much of it. I want my state to model to the world that killing solves nothing, grants peace of mind to no person, never, ever is a resolution.

Kary Shender

Davis

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