‘Good To Be Alive’
Merrill Graduate Student Aaron Carter ’12 wrote a piece on how violence has affected members of the Delaware Valley Charter football family.
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SHAYNE SMITH was 13 when two shots ripped through his forearms, locking his elbows in position as he tried to flee the scene. Roger Reid was 14 when nine shots licked, ripped and splayed his flesh as he walked to a cousin’s house – a block away – this past Fourth of July.
Days before a preliminary hearing was scheduled this week for two suspects in the Sept. 22 murder of Del-Val student Aisha Abdur Rahman, Smith and Reid revealed how violence had previously barged into their lives. (Former Father Judge freshman running back Quadir Gibson, 15, and Darian Person, 19, the alleged shooter, are charged with the murder.)
“I don’t even remember, because my back was toward the street,” Smith, now a 16-year-old junior quarterback, says of the moments before shots were fired at him, his brother and friends nearly 3 years ago.
“And once you hear stuff, you just start running, so that’s what I did,” he continues. “Then we got two blocks away, and I just saw blood squirting from my arms.”
Regrettably, violent crime in Philadelphia is not a new phenomenon. Its occasional reach into high school sports is also too familiar.
