By Arthur Weinreb
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The phrase, "in the wrong place at the wrong time" is inevitably used by someone wherever an innocent person who is not a target is killed or seriously injured by becoming caught in a crossfire or becomes the subject of a random act of violence. And the murder last weekend of 11-year-old Ephraim Brown was no exception.
Ephraim was with friends and family members at a birthday party. Shortly before 1 a.m. he was sitting in a breezeway in the housing complex where he lived and where the party was being held when shots erupted between supposed rival gang members, none of whom had been invited to the party. Little Ephraim, who was caught in the middle, was shot in the neck and died shortly after.
Words have meaning; or at least they used to. By saying that innocent victims are in the "wrong" place and at the "wrong" time there is the clear implication that they have done something wrong that contributed to their untimely deaths. Most noticeably, this phrase was used a lot when Jane Creba was gunned down during the ending days of 2005, a year which at least until now is known as Toronto's "year of the gun". Creba made the decision to go shopping on Toronto's main street on a Boxing Day afternoon; if where she was at a particular time was "wrong", then she was "wrong" to be where she was during the last few minutes of her all too short life. This makes her at least partially responsible for her own death, which of course is ridiculous.
So to use this popular phrase, was Ephraim Brown in the wrong place at the wrong time? What is surprising and perhaps an indication of how far our society has fallen in recent years is that the only one asking this question seems to be the dead boy's mother.
Lorna Brown told the media that she rarely let her 11-year-old son out at night. Others close to her, friends and family, used to chastise her for being too strict. The last night of Ephraim's life was one of the few times that she decided to "lighten up" and allow him to go to his cousin's birthday party; a decision that she of course now regrets.
While Ephraim's death is big news now, with police making quick arrests and the usual shameless opportunists salivating over their excuse to call for a full handgun ban, the media reports shortly after the incident happened indicated that we have become pretty blas about young children becoming victims of gun violence. In the hours following the shooting that happened on a particularly violent weekend, the news merely indicated the number of people that were shot and adding "including an 11-year-old boy". But something was missing in all the media attention that was later given to this incident.
No one other than Lorna Brown seems to think that there might have been something wrong with an 11-year-old boy being outside a one o'clock in the morning, especially in an area where guns and gang violence are not unknown. In today's enlightened culture, young children (not Ephraim) are allowed to be on the streets, unsupervised, all hours of the day and night and not only is this tolerated but society's elites argue that they have a right to do so. Whenever an idea of imposing a curfew on children is brought up, these elites arrogantly smile and argue that these kiddies have the constitutional right to be anywhere at any time. Oh, but it's the weekend, it's the summer and children should be allowed to be out until the wee hours of the morning. And the weekend and school party really aren't relevant to the issue.
Were it not for this permissive society that we have worked so long and so hard to build, Lorna Brown might have followed her instincts instead of giving into the pressure put upon here that she was too strict with her son. Ephraim no doubt would be unhappy about missing at least part of the party but he would still be alive.
We are quickly approaching the point where these incidents are becoming routine. It's only a matter of time when they won't draw any more attention than the death of a gangbanger does now.
Ephraim Brown was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sadly, his mother is one of the few people who recognize this.
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