STOMPED!

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. --A beautiful young mother is valiantly attempting to stifle her sobs in front of the camera.  A photo of her son, a handsome 18-year-old, is flashed on screen.  His pale green eyes twinkle above a sweet face as he posed for his senior picture.
 
When Bobby Tillman went to a house party last Saturday night (November 6), he was expecting to be one among 10 invited guests.  As so often happens with teen parties, by the time midnight came and went, the number of “guests” had swelled to somewhere near 80.  

At some point a fight outside the house broke out between two girls and two guys. Pandemonium set in.  A woman hit a man. Refusing to hit a woman in response, the man announced to his cohorts that he was going to hit the next male who walked by him.  Tillman, who didn’t even attend the same high school as most of the others at the party, walked by the group at that same moment.  Four male partiers beat Bobby Tillman for no other reason than he was there.  He was not fighting.  He did not know the four lying in wait.  He did nothing but run out of luck.

Bobby Tillman was stomped, kicked and punched to death in the midst of more than 50 people, and no one – no one—came to his aid.

How do we explain this incident to ourselves?  The victim and all four of the 18 and 19-year-olds charged with Bobby’s murder are African American, so there were no racial overtones.  As of Monday police had not determined any kind of gang-related violence as the cause.  The parents of the girl who hosted the party were present; they had asked the uninvited mob to leave earlier, with little response.  And most surprising of all, police found no drugs or alcohol at the middle class suburban Atlanta house. These four near-men simply worked themselves into a frenzy and killed an innocent man because a “female,” as they often refer to young women, hauled off and clocked one of them. 

These kids had what we call home training down here in Georgia.  Obviously, the one who decided to attack the first male he saw had been taught not to hit girls, giving this story a sickening twist of irony.

I have never understood why 18 was ever selected to be the age of majority.  In so many ways, all of these people are children.  Yet, within a matter of less than sixty seconds, the actions of these four man-children destroyed the lives of five entire families, and there is talk of the death penalty.  My heart is breaking.

 AP Source article