Trenton seeks a starting point to ending the violence
A mother’s tears last night shattered a Trenton Police Department basement meeting room as hundreds delivered support for the city’s latest homicide victim.
Regina Jenkins described her son, Tre Lane, as a good kid, who did all the right things, even stepped in front of bullets to save two female companions.
“My heart is broke. My heart is breaking. I don’t know when I’m going to heal. I can’t even stay in my house. I can’t even stay in my house. If there is word on the street, please pass the information to the police. I just want justice for my son. I don’t want him to die in vain. Cause he saved those girls. I taught him not to be selfish,” Jenkins said.
Word to this mother. Tre Lane, 19, dying at approximately 3 a.m. after being shot on New Willow St., will serve as a rallying point for the City of Trenton.
Police officials needed a bigger room as hundreds squished into a room while an overflow crowd stood in an adjacent lobby.
Lane, a Trenton Central High School 2011 graduate, had a retired corrections officer for a father and a schoolteacher mother, who guided him in worthy directions until he and three others were ambushed by two assailants.
Reports say Lane ran from a porch on New Willow Street to a home on Kirkbride Avenue where he collapsed.
Imagine running with a bullet in your chest, your body gasping for final breaths as blood dripped from your wound. Imagine how his parents feel, losing their only child to a crazy world of violence that envelops this city while Mayor Tony Mack hides out because of a federal indictment.
It’s time, Trenton. It’s time for a bloodletting of anger, tears and suffering. It’s time Trenton, for a realization that our police force, even bolstered by state police officers, will not solve our violence problem.
Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr. promised more patrols, added boots on the street and a number of other initiatives but nothing proved more telling than his take on ways to combat a culture of 100 shootings and 15 murders to date.
“It gets to a point, and I think we’re at that point, right now, when we have just had enough. I think I’m speaking for everyone in this room, by the way people are looking at me here, this is it,” Director Rivera said.
It really is. Forget about the fear that grips this city. Disable all thoughts about snitching. Trenton has reached a point of no return. Either we stand together and fight the thugs who terrorize our neighborhoods or we throw up our hands, shutter our homes and allow an insurgence of violence to destroy our neighborhoods.
“While I understand and I get it when sometimes these incidents happen, individuals are afraid to come forward. ...You can call in anonymously and give us information about these incidents. One thing you will hear over and over again (last night), we have to get involved. We can’t just close our eyes,” Rivera continued.
Tre Lane’s eyes are shut tight, brushed down by a funeral home director who has a responsibility to make this young man presentable for a going home service that will fill a local church with hundreds of friends, community leaders and family supporters.
Those responsible will be caught and brought to justice because this city can not tolerate such an affront to young men attempting to live good lives.
Tre Lane, just like Florida’s Trayvon Martin, could easily be our son, our sibling rushing down a street with life dripping out of his body as the moon and stars serve as a backdrop to his earthly departure.
We will be guilty of every imaginable human sin if we rise up for one day then disappear into our homes, hot-breathed for a moment until Tre Lane’s cold body lays in a casket then lowered into a dark hole.
Let’s not allow the death of Tre Lane be an easily forgotten one
While Trenton yearns for leadership from City Hall, guidance that we will not receive, it’s time for this city to stand together against every gun toter, drug dealer, gang member, and crime pusher.
Rivera made no mistake about the death of Tre Lane.
“That could be any one of our sons,” Rivera acknowledged.
Or our daughter. Or mother. Or sibling. Our brother.
We can point the finger at trigger pullers but at the end of the day, this is more about us than them.
It’s time.