Letter: Losing too many children to horrific and preventable deaths

Editor,

I am writing to you with a heavy heart. It has now been over a week since our community experienced a very tragic event. It was reported that the police took down and killed a “man” who charged at them with knives during a wellness check. An awful picture was published from the officer’s body cam portraying this individual as a monster.

I am a member of this community, I am a wife and mother, and I am also an educator from the DELTA Center where this “man” was a student. No one mentioned his name! No one mentioned that he was a student. No one mentioned that he was a brother. No one mentioned how intelligent and artistic he was. No one mentioned that people loved and cared about him. No one mentioned that he had a soul that was extremely traumatized and was battling mental health issues. My heart hurts and I am not alone. I am wishing things could have been different for this teen, not a man as stated in the paper.

I think we as humans need to stop for a moment and do a little self-reflection on what it is to be compassionate. We as a society have seemed to have gotten hardened and eager to point the finger, even when we don’t have all the facts or answers. Rarely are things ever black and white. It feels that our existence is one of imbalance. We all feel a sense of injustice about so many things.

 My wish is for us to be more productive on how WE can help make our community better. We all need to do our part. We need more support in every aspect. Behavioral health, the police, the community, the educators, and medical workers are all in such high demand and are facing issues that are causing severe exhaustion and burnout. We need to support everyone and have productive conversations on how we all can do better to make our community become a safer place. Not only do we, but our youth deserve to feel safe, stable, loved, and have a sense of worth. We have so much healing to do. We are losing too many children to horrific and preventable deaths. It should never be considered normal, deserved or acceptable.

Jenny Noonan

Monte Vista