What puts a gun in the hands of a 14-year-old boy?

Below is a piece written by the Nashville City Paper with additions by Teenedge staff. 

What puts a gun in the hands of a 14-year-old boy in the middle of a school day? That is the question Nashvillians are likely asking themselves today after the community lost by all accounts one of its kindest stewards.

Classie “Mama” Wilson, the 70-year-old owner of the Cahal Market in East Nashville was shot to death Monday allegedly by a young man from the same neighborhood she acted as a mother figure to for decades.

Metro Police arrested 14-year-old Rodzell Mason who police say confessed to the crime.

At a vigil yesterday on Cahal Avenue, residents of the area were clearly griefstricken. They questioned the policing strategy of the area and bemoaned not only the loss of Wilson but the alleged poor choices of Mason.

As startling as the crime was and as tragic as the loss seems, a statistic given by police Tuesday is even more chilling.

Mason is the 13th Nashville juvenile this year to be arrested on homicide charges. These kinds of statistics and the overall rise in juvenile crime on our streets and in our schools cries out for a holistic, broad-based approach to literally saving Nashville’s youth. To see more on the crime statistics of young adults, watch this Channel 2 news story.

Nashville as a community must rise up against this kind of senseless violence. There has been a great deal of talk about the future of Nashville’s youth in the last several years — talk about turning around our public school system and talk about fighting gangs. The effort must exceed even those daunting goals.

This crime and the accompanying statistics are yet another stark reminder Nashville is at a fork in the road.

Will we fall into the despair and depression of other major urban cities in this country whose schools fail and jails remain full? Or, will we as a community help our young people reject violence?

It would be easy to put this responsibility on Mayor Karl Dean’s shoulders as he ran largely on improving schools and combating juvenile crime. Now would be a good time to hear the new mayor’s juvenile crime plan.

This effort though will require nearly every facet of the community, from government and schools to civic groups and faithbased leadership.

It is not clear what form a new effort to combat juvenile crime will take, but it will require every resource the city has available.