Investigators inspect the scene on Jan. 26 after 17-year-old Jessica “Jessie” Hernandez was shot and killed by Denver police in the Park Hill neighborhood. (Photos by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)
After reading articles on the shooting death of an unarmed teen in Denver last week, I am struck by what is not mentioned. While I can’t imagine a situation where police shooting at a moving car is ever a viable course of action, I am also mind-boggled by the lack of concern over how a careful of minors ended up in a situation like this in the first place. Wasn’t there a single parent who wondered where their child was all night – on a school night, no less? What led a good-natured kid and her friends to an alleyway in a stolen vehicle?
As a society, we unquestionably need to investigate and eliminate police violence, but don’t we also have a duty to understand and mitigate what leads our children into the path of such violence?
Louise Hughes,Loveland
This letter was published in the Feb. 4 edition.
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