Stop The Violence

Hello my name is Benjamin Rivera and I’m Doing a Project for my English class called You & The World which involves me studying a problem in the world and gaining evidence with pictures and sources from the internet like videos and articles about youth violence. My project choice was youth violence in Philadelphia which basically involves me and all the high school students in Philadelphia as  we are all affected and actually the cause of this problem in the city of Philadelphia. I want people who live outside of the city to see, review, and join the movement to stop youth violence everywhere. I spent some time doing research about youth violence and I found two sources from the internet and one source as an interview.

I spent some time looking for somebody to interview for my project. I found a Police Officer who was generous enough to make the interview possible. We had a conversation on the phone and I asked questions that involved gender equality, home environment, and school environment and if they played a key role in youth violence and caused attitudes and actions of high school students to change in a bad way. He answered yes and the youth violence he witnesses is getting worse and worse everyday. I also included a topic that approached after school dismissal and the safety of our community. He answered and implied that Philadelphia as a whole isn’t safe after school hours because the students are causing problems and people are getting hurt. The interview gave me the knowledge that the police witness youth violence and it can be so bad that even they cannot control the situation. As I shared in my first slate first, mobs can be up to 100+ kids and can easily get out of hand.

A big event that happened in January of 2016 gave me the perfect story to follow up on my interview. An 8th grader was caught trespassing at a high school in las vegas and it ended tragically. When a police officer came to arrest the middle school student, his sister got involved.Then a crowd swarmed around the officer’s  swat car and a student threw a rock at the officer's head. He then took out his pepper spray and the students scattered with burning eyes and throats. This officer is right for this because he was alone and he was just doing his job and the students needed to stop and mind their business. This is police isn’t brutality this is students starting a flash mob and started violence with a police officer because they have the numbers to get away with it.

I found another event that involved a crowd of young teenagers watching two girls fighting out on the streets of NYC and this is just sad how a group of people just surrounded and watched these two girls fight. Throwing each other on the floor, grabbing each other’s hair  while people just stood there watching the blows. The girls were teenagers fighting with pajamas in the middle of the street. One brave adult stepped in and stopped the fight. That women is an example of how everyone should act. To believe there should be peace and love in our youth community. Why do we have to fight? Why can’t we just be friends or walk away from a problem?

Since blog post one I learned that students and teenagers in general are careless when it comes to other people. They react and act ignorantly without thinking of the consequences of their actions. We need more heroes in the world. n my next blog post I will inform you of the heroes and people who take charge when they see youth violence in their community, and how they responded to the situation. If you want to find other sources you can check out my annotated bibliography and do some more research.