If You Think This is Racist than You Have A Serious Problem
You won’t recognize me. My name was Antonio West and I was the 13-month old child who was shot at point blank range by two teens who were attempting to rob my mother, who was also shot.
A Grand Jury of my mommy’s peers from Brunswick GA determined the teens who murdered me will not face the death penalty. Too bad. I was given a death sentence for being innocent and defenseless.
My family made the mistake of being white in a 73% non-white neighborhood, but my murder was not ruled a Hate Crime. Nor did President Obama take so much as a single moment to acknowledge my murder.
I am one of the youngest murder victims in our great Nation’s history, but the media doesn’t care to cover the story of my tragic demise. President Obama has no children who could possibly look like me – so he doesn’t care, and the media doesn’t care, because my story is not interesting enough to bring them ratings so they can sell commercial time slots.
There is not a white equivalent of Al Sharpton, because if there was he would be declared racist. So there is no one rushing to Brunswick GA to demand justice for me. There is no White Panther party to put a bounty on the lives of those who murdered me. I have no voice, I have no representation, and unlike those who shot me in the face while I sat innocently in my stroller – I no longer have my life.
So while you are seeking justice for Treyvon, please remember to seek justice for me too. Tell your friends about me, tell you families, get tee shirts with my face on them and make the world pay attention, just like you did for Treyvon.
Georgia Baby Dead: 13-Month-Old Antonio Shot By Young Boy In Front Of Mother, Sherry West, Police Say (UPDATE)
AP | By RUSS BYNUM Posted: 03/22/2013 8:12 am EDT | Updated: 03/23/2013 2:35 pm EDT
Original Story:
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — A Georgia woman said Friday a teenager trying to rob her at gunpoint asked “Do you want me to kill your baby?” before he fatally shot her 13-month-old son in the head.
Sherry West wept while she told The Associated Press that she pleaded with the gunman and a younger accomplice who approached her Thursday morning while she walked near their home in coastal Brunswick.
“He asked me for money and I said I didn’t have it,” she said. “When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They’re expensive. And he kept asking and I just said `I don’t have it.’ And he said, `Do you want me to kill your baby?’ And I said, `No, don’t kill my baby!'”
Police were combing school records and canvassing neighborhoods searching for the pair. While police have said the two boys were between the ages of 10 and 15, the mother says she believes the younger boy was as young as 5 years old.
She said the teen fired four shots, the first into the ground. West didn’t see a shell casing ejected, and said she assumed the gun wasn’t real.
Then he fired at her head and the bullet grazed her left ear – she has a small scab and bruising there. He fired again and shot her in the left leg above the knee. “I didn’t know I was hurt.”
“The boy proceeded to go around to the stroller and he shot my baby in the face,” she said. “And then he just shoved me when I started screaming and he ran down London Street with the little boy.”
Police spokesman Todd Rhodes gave few details about the investigation Friday, but said no weapon has been found and that investigators were checking school attendance records for leads.
Several people in the neighborhood called 911 after they heard the gunshots fired, but Rhodes said investigators believed that the mother was the only witness to what happened.
“Understand this: There is no clear motive right now,” he said.
He urged anyone with information to call Brunswick police. There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
The mother lives in a rented house in the city’s Old Town historic district. Beverly Anderson’s husband owns the property and she said West has lived there for six or seven years.
“We’re just very sorry about what happened and very aghast that something could happen in our little neighborhood,” Anderson said. “It’s a quiet, safe little neighborhood.”
Anderson said people walk up and down the street, children walk to school and families are frequently outdoors. “It’s scared everybody,” she said. “They don’t feel so safe outside.”
She said West stayed home to care for her baby, who was often spotted in his mother’s arms.
“The house has a front porch with a swing and we’d see him out on the swing with his mother,” Anderson said. “He was a happy, cheerful baby.”
It’s not the mother’s first loss of a child to violence. Sherry West said her 18-year-old son, Shaun Glassey, was killed in New Jersey in 2008. She still has a newspaper clipping from the time.
Glassey was killed with a steak knife in March 2008 during an attack involving several other teens on a dark street corner in Gloucester County, N.J., according to news reports from the time.
“He and some other boys were going to ambush a kid,” Bernie Weisenfeld, a spokesman for the Gloucester County prosecutor’s office, told the AP Friday.
Glassey was armed with a knife, but the 17-year-old target of the attack was able to get the knife away from him “and Glassey ended up on the wrong end of the knife,” Weisenfeld recalled.
Prosecutors decided the 17-year-old would not be charged because they determined that he acted in self-defense.
UPDATE 4:24 p.m. — BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Police have arrested two teenagers suspected in the shooting death of a baby in a stroller and the wounding of the baby’s mother.
Brunswick Police Chief Tobe Green said Friday that 17-year-old De’Marquis Elkins is charged with first-degree murder as an adult.
The 14-year-old is also charged with murder, but he was not identified because he is a juvenile.
The chief said police were still investigating the motive and searching for a weapon.
The mother, Sherry West, said she was walking near her home Thursday morning with her baby, Antonio, when she was approached by two boys who demanded money. She was shot in the leg and a bullet grazed her ear.
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Associated Press Writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta and news researcher Monika Mathur in New York contributed to this report.
Two teen boys arrested in shooting death of Georgia infant in stroller
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March 22, 2013: This photo provided by Sherry West, of Brunswick, Ga., shows her son Antonio Santiago celebrating his first Christmas in December of 2012. (AP)
Two teenage boys were arrested Friday in the shocking shooting death of an infant, killed in the stroller his mother was pushing in a coastal Georgia town.
Seventeen-year-old De’Marquis Elkins is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Brunswick Police Chief Tobe Green said.
The mother, Sherry West, was wounded in the apparent attempted robbery Thursday morning. The precise motive still is under investigation.
Officer Todd Rhodes of the Brunswick Police Department told FoxNews.com earlier that numerous tips had been received in connection to the shooting, and police had been going door to door searching for the suspects. Investigators also were checking school attendance records for leads.
Several nearby residents called 911 after hearing gunshots fired, but Rhodes said investigators believe the mother was the only witness to what happened.
West, wept Friday while she told The Associated Press that she pleaded with the gunman and a younger accomplice who approached her Thursday morning while she walked near their home in coastal Brunswick.
“He asked me for money and I said I didn’t have it,” she said. “When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They’re expensive. And he kept asking and I just said `I don’t have it.’ And he said, `Do you want me to kill your baby?’ And I said, `No, don’t kill my baby!”‘
West said the gunman fired four shots, the first into the ground. West didn’t see a shell casing ejected and she assumed the gun wasn’t real.
Then he fired at her head and the bullet grazed her left ear — she has a small scab and bruising there. He fired again and shot her in the left leg above the knee. “I didn’t know I was hurt.”
“The boy proceeded to go around to the stroller and he shot my baby in the face,” she said. “And then he just shoved me when I started screaming and he ran down London Street with the little boy.”
West was later transported to the Southeast Georgia Health System for medical treatment. She is expected to recover.
“This is obviously a terrible day in Brunswick,” Brunswick Mayor Bryan Thompson said. “If you know something and don’t call, you are complicit in this crime.”
Antonio’s father, Louis Santiago, told WAWS-TV he wishes he could have been there to protect his family.
“He was special,” Santiago said. “He had the bluest, bluest eyes.”
Residents described Brunswick — a city of roughly 15,000 about 80 miles south of Savannah — as normally quiet despite some property crimes of late.
“This makes me very uneasy,” Patricia Buie told The Brunswick News. “Now I am very concerned. It is making me want to move to the mountains.”
It’s not the mother’s first loss of a child to violence. West said her 18-year-old son, Shaun Glassey, was killed in New Jersey in 2008. She still has a newspaper clipping from the time.
Glassey was killed with a steak knife in March 2008 during an attack involving several other teens on a dark street corner in Gloucester County, N.J., according to news reports from the time.
“He and some other boys were going to ambush a kid,” Bernie Weisenfeld, a spokesman for the Gloucester County prosecutor’s office, told the AP Friday.
Glassey was armed with a knife, but the 17-year-old target of the attack was able to get the knife away from him “and Glassey ended up on the wrong end of the knife,” Weisenfeld recalled.
Prosecutors decided the 17-year-old would not be charged because they determined that he acted in self-defense.
FoxNews.com’s Joshua Rhett Miller and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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