Press Photos/Delbridge Langdon Jr.
GRAND RAPIDS — Standing over a teenage gunshot victim, Jill Johnson prayed the young man would survive a wound to his chest and hoped two suspects implicated would find salvation from their evil.
She knew by looking at David Witherspoon, a 16-year-old Creston High School student, that at least one of her requests would go unanswered.
And based on what Johnson calls senseless violence, she doubts the teenage gunmen will find redemption.
“There’s no regard for human life, not the young man they shot, not the people they put in danger and not their own families,” she said. “I saw his face and, I tell you, that’ll never leave me not as long as I live.
“It’s heartless, senseless.”
Witherspoon was killed as he walked along Kalamazoo Avenue SE, near Ballard Street, about 4 p.m. Friday, Police Chief Kevin Belk said.
Posted by The Grand Rapids Press September 26, 2008 18:48PM
Time heals visible pain, but invisible pain is carried for a lifetime. Yet we seek tangible ways to deal with intangible pain. These teenagers constructed a monument, a memorial so they could hold David close, hold him in their memory, and see and touch those memories. They knew where they needed to grieve. It was not at school, in the church, or in the graveyard, it was on the curb where he fell . . . never to get up again. This is where he took his last breath, this is where he smiled his last smile, this is where he last interacted with his friends. Counselors, pastors, grief counselors will be available at the church services next week and at the school on Monday morning. Yet these youth knew what they needed; right then, right there, on the street.
As I watched the police enforcing the dispersement, I watched and listened to the kids compliantly leaving, often with sobbing. Within 10 minutes the crowds were gone, yet the police were still there quietly standing nearby as small groups of youth gathered to cry . . . the only sound I could hear besides the sounds of passing cars. I cried with them. Then one by one they started coming with candles, lining the curb and lighting them until there was a flickering glow illuminating the memorial they had built.
Another way we deal with intangible pain is through tangible rituals. To me lighting candles seemed so right, so natural, without really knowing why.
I have a feeling David’s most meaningful memorial services took place on the streets along the curb, organized, not by adults, but by his friends. It became a sacred place with sacred rituals.
If we were to listen to youth, we might have had counselors, pastors, and grief counselors along that curb at midnight on Saturday night. With their advance permission, I would have loved to have been there on that curb to listen; rather that in the safety of my car across the street; feeling helpless and and quite ashamed for not knowing how to help.
Maybe I can learn to grieve . . . from children.
~ Grieving has its own timeline that we need to honor. It should not be squeezed into our timelines and schedules.
~ Grieving needs a tangible place to solidify memories. We need to create a space where we can grasp the illusive pain of our heart; face it, feel it, and put it to rest.
~ Grieving needs tangible rituals that allow us to do something meaningful, even if we have to infuse those rituals with meaning for that moment. We need to use our bodies (hands, feet, mind) to work out the pain in our heart.
Maybe we should learn how to grieve from our heart and spirit rather than depending on the convenience of schedules and the dictates of the free market (high-cost funeral goods and services).
If we are true to ourselves, like children, we can learn to carry this invisible pain and make it a part of our lives, rather than run from it.
Ron
October 1, 2008
‘Another family is hurting’ after drive-by shooting suspect commits suicide in standoff
by Theresa D. McClellan | The Grand Rapids Press
Tuesday September 30, 2008, 11:04 PM
GRAND RAPIDS — After the drive-by murder of a 16-year-old boy he did not know, Kyle Keenan — alone and on the lam — made a phone call to relatives talking about heaven and suicide.
“He was asking the family would he still go to heaven if he committed suicide. We told him, ‘Don’t kill yourself, boy,’” said his uncle, Larry Keenan.
Tuesday afternoon Larry Keenan recalled those words moments after he was shattered to hear from police that his 21-year-old nephew shot himself in a hotel room as armed police in riot gear closed in.
Grand Rapids police had been seeking Keenan for four days.
Tuesday afternoon they received a tip that the younger Keenan was in a room at the America’s Best Inns & Suites on 28th Street near Buchanan Avenue, so they and Wyoming police surrounded the Southwest Side hotel.
As police approached, two men tried to flee from separate exits. An officer spotted a weapon, yelled “gun” and the suspects rushed back inside.
Kyle Keenan
At one point police heard a single gun shot. They captured Keenan’s acquaintance as he fled the hotel, Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk said later.
It took about 40 minutes to evacuate the hotel before police peered inside to see Keenan disabled and on the ground. The captured acquaintance didn’t tell police Keenan had shot himself, Belk said.
Police closed off eastbound 28th Street traffic at Buchanan during the evacuation.
Keenan on Saturday was identified as a suspect in the drive-by shooting of Creston High School student David Witherspoon on Friday afternoon.
The 16-year-old was killed in a hail of gunfire as two people in a white Dodge Neon sprayed at least five shots into the crowd at Kalamazoo Avenue near Griggs Street SE. Police said Keenan was the gunman, and no motive was known.
Keenan’s family huddled around a cruiser Tuesday afternoon, their grief obvious as police said Keenan died from a self-inflicted wound.
The elder Keenan walked past the cruisers and onto a vacant parking lot as two young women with tears streaming down their faces clung to a cell phone.
Keenan started punching his fist into a vacant garage, wailing “Why, why,” and weeping.
He said his nephew started out as “a good kid, then he got caught up in this life.”
“He went to Messiah Baptist Church, he was a good boy until this.”
His grandmother used to daily drive him to and from his factory job on 28th Street SE. They didn’t know his whereabouts after Friday but received a call from him asking about suicide and heaven.
In the call, Keenan talked to his grandmother about death. “He asked her could he still go to heaven if he committed suicide,” Larry Keenan reported.
He said the family told the youth, “Don’t kill yourself boy, don’t do that.”
The elder Keenan added, “What makes it so bad is he didn’t even know that boy he shot.”
He added that his nephew participated in a “stop the violence” seminar at Creston High School with WJNZ owner Robert S. Womack a couple years ago.
Chief Belk said even though witnesses identified Keenan as the shooter, there is no reason to feel good about the outcome.
“Another family is hurting,” he pointed out.