The names of ten men will not be read during the annual New Year’s Eve candlelight vigil that will remember people killed in St. Louis this year, but they too represent the senseless black-on-black violence plaguing St. Louis.
Instead of being killed by violence, as had 167 people this year (as of press time) in St. Louis city, the men are bound to wheelchairs and their lives are forever changed by gun violence.
“Death is one of three things that can happen when you get shot, and I’m in the middle death n and hell n because I can’t move,” said Brandon Morris, who along with Terrence Clark started Brothers Keepers.
The group consists of 10 members. Most of them lost their ability to walk because of gun violence. But they aren’t just sitting around n they go out and mentor to youths who are at risk of becoming disabled like them or who may be potential shooters.
“If we share our stories, it might get someone to change their life,” said Morris, a quadriplegic. He can’t move anything below his shoulders and needs round-the-clock attention.
“Most of the young, black men that check into rehab and the wheelchair have been victims of gun violence,” Clark said.
As of Nov. 30, according to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, there had been 2,173 aggravated assaults by gun in the city in 2008. (There had been 2,040 aggravated assaults by gun for the year through November 30, 2007.)
Morris admitted that when he got shot 12 years ago, he was a bad boy.
“I was living for Satan, but I want young people to know that they don’t have to wait until something drastic comes along for them to change their lifestyle,” Morris said, who meets with members of Brothers Keepers regularly at the Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis.
“I got shot over a random verbal altercation, but it doesn’t justify where I am now.”
The talk and laughter the men share at the center are therapeutic. The men also want to make sure young people who find themselves in their situation know how to deal with it.
“We prepare them for when they go home, because it isn’t going to be plush like it is up in here in the hospital,” said Clark, co-founder of the group, who was shot by a stray bullet 18 years ago, while sitting in his car at the intersection of Natural Bridge and Kingshighway.
“People think you just can’t walk, but there’s so much more to it n you have to stay healthy and watch for pressure sores, you have to have someone cook for you, and on and on.”
One member, Dietrich Smith, said, “We got a life sentence in the wheelchair and we’ll never get parole, and that’s something I learned in the beginning when I was told I was permanently disabled.”
Smith has been in a wheelchair since 1982. He was shot six times by the big brother of a juvenile he had “snitched” on. He knew better, because he grew up in a tough neighborhood where “snitching” was taboo, but that didn’t stop him from doing what he thought was the right thing.
“If we don’t tell, our community is going to stay bad and I bet that neighborhoods that snitch have less crime than those that don’t,” Smith said.
Smith may have paid a high price for snitching, but he has continued his education, has a business and is diversity director at Chaminade College Preparatory School.
He wants young people to know that they too can be successful, though they’re confined to a wheelchair.
“I try to get them to be healthy and get out here and get some skills and be successful,” Smith said.
“So my goal is to get involved with brothers with broken bones and broken spirits and try to mend the spirit part.”
F.A.S.T. (Families Advocating Safe Streets) annual candlelight vigil will be held at 4 p.m. today (Wednesday, Dec. 31) at El Bethel Church of God in Christ, 4020 Page.
