OPINION:
This past Mother’s Day in Washington, Alonte Sutton’s mother was told that her only child had been shot to death (“Police arrest suspect in D.C. Council intern slaying,” News, Web, May 11).
It is alleged that on the previous Saturday, several people had called police after witnessing a shirtless man with an automatic chasing another man (Alonte Sutton) into a wooded ravine. They said this was followed by gun shots - in broad daylight. It is also alleged that when the police arrived, they refused to get out of their patrol cars to investigate.
Perhaps if these officers had just gotten out of their cars and properly investigated the crime scene on Saturday, they would have found Alonte Sutton’s body in that wooded ravine and his mother would have been spared the pain of finding out on Mother’s Day that her only child had been killed.
Alonte Sutton, intern to D.C. Councilman Michael Brown, was highly regarded and spoken of by Mr. Brown and his entire staff. He was a straight-A student at Ballou High School in Washington, yet another rising young star shot and killed on the streets of our nation’s capital, the most important city in the world, at only 18 years of age.
As I write this letter, only a few local newspapers have carried the story of Alonte Sutton’s murder. Perhaps if the young man had been white - with the same academic achievements under his belt - the story would have made national news.
Please don’t let Alonte Sutton be just another dead young man. Just maybe this letter will make it to President Obama, who will read it and take a good, long look out of one of those White House windows to see all these young, black men dying on the streets of our nation’s capital.
In the 32 years that I have been a Washington resident, I don’t think I’ve ever heard or read about a sitting president addressing the black-on-black crime that has plagued this city for decades. Mr. Obama, don’t you think it’s about time?
PAM HAIRSTON
Washington
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