Letter to the Editor
To the Editor:
On April 23, 2016, while my 15-year-old son was walking home from a block party that was going on down the street from our house, about 10 or more boys jumped him from behind.
He lost his iPhone and his brand new Air Force 1’s that he had only had for a short period of time. How we know what was happening was, my husband had called him at almost 11 p.m. to tell him to come on home and when my son tried to answer the phone, my husband heard a young lady hollering - “why are y’all jumping him?” - and my husband ran down the hill and saw several boys running down the street and one boy was still behind my son until he saw my husband.
My point is, they could have killed him. The type of mother that I am, when it comes to my child/children, I’ll go to the extreme about them. I was constantly checking with the HSPD and when it was out of their hands, I was consistent in checking on the case with Holly Springs Youth Court Services. The last time I checked with them, they informed me that the youth court attorney would be contacting me two weeks prior to court, either by letter or phone.
Out of the large number of guys who jumped on my youngest son, we only got the names of three to press charges against. So on December 6, 2016, I received a voicemail from the youth court attorney saying that she was trying to get in contact with me about coming to court. I didn’t receive that voicemail until a week later, which was December 13, because where I work, I can’t have a phone with me. When I checked my voicemail that particular day, I called her right back at the number that she left on my voicemail and she said that she was in the middle of something and that she would call me back and she never did. So, I kept calling her and calling her and finally I called her from a different number and she answered and said, “that is over with,” and didn’t give me any explanation or anything.
My child/children are important to me, regardless if they’re not to anyone else and this is a prime example of the system failing our youth. If we had taken matters into our own hands, we would be in jail or still going to court and this is probably the reason why we have three or four unsolved murders of young men in the city and county now.
Concerned parent,
Tarsha Harris
Holly Springs