Posts
Her son would be 14, and on quiet days, when her younger children are at school, Patricia Arnold sits and imagines her son as a high schooler, discovering his independence, but still “sweet and kind,” tagging behind his older brother Cardeen, teasing his sisters, helping around the house, doting on Arnold, pleading “Mommy, gimme a kiss.”
Across from the brown sofa, a large portrait of Faheem peers down from the wall. It was drawn by an inmate in state prison, where Arnold once spoke about how violence stole her son.
One bitter cold February morning, five years ago, as Faheem Thomas Childs walked to school in his North Philadelphia neighborhood, two groups of men, feuding for days, pulled out guns and fired more than 40 shots at each other.
A crossing guard was struck in the foot. At the schoolyard gate, Faheem was struck in the head, above his right eye. The third grader fell to the ground, onto his backpack. A police officer rushed him to the hospital. He died three days later.
A mother grieved, and a city was outraged.
Five years later, Arnold’s tears come easily, along with anger. She’s pained with the thought that her son, known in the family as Poppy, with his brown face, tight cornrows and warm, almond eyes, who became a national poster child for the city’s raging gun violence, has been long forgotten.
“What are we going to do to keep the change going? What are we going to do to keep these streets safe for our children? Everybody was around that day, where are you today?
“In this neighborhood, I can say they tried,” she continues. “But it is a change that went on?” She pauses. “No.”
Arnold, 37, says she remembers that morning - February 11, 2004 - like it was yesterday.
Faheem didn’t want to go to school. He said his stomach hurt, she remembers, but soon enough he was feeling better.
“Are you sure you wanna to go?,” she asked.“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Arnold gave him her usual run down: “Go straight to school. Watch out for cars. Don’t talk to strangers. And if somebody’s shooting, duck.”
“Mommy, gimme a kiss,” Faheem said, then ran out the door. He left without his two sisters. He didn’t want to be late.
Today, when Arnold walks three of her children to Faheem’s old elementary school, she takes the long route, careful to avoid the path he walked that day.
Outside the school, she notices the mural that includes his likeness has faded.
“My brother got hurt over there didn’t he mom,” her son Rasheen, 7, often asks. Arnold just nods, eyeing a police officer standing in the school yard.
Two men accused in Faheem's death, Kennell Spady and Kareem Johnson, were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Police believe at least three other men were involved, but no additional arrests have been made. No one is takling.
The parent patrols have dissipated. The school has a new principal. Faheem’s old classmates have long graduated.
“Every time I walk in that school I get a cold breeze,” Arnold says. “I don’t see no memory of my son.”
“They should have something in there saying ‘In Memory Of Faheem’ or ‘Stop The Violence,’ something ... It could have been 10 or 15 more kids just stretched out on the pavement.”
Arnold, a stay-at-home mom, has eight children, including one step son; the oldest 21, the youngest 6-year-old. And she has seven grandchildren. Shortly before Faheem was killed, the Philadelphia Housing Authority moved Arnold, who once lived in a homeless shelter, to a three-story row house in North Philadelphia to accomodate her growing family.
Faheem’s father lives up the street.
The family is close knit, closer now, she says. The older ones have graduated high school and have decent jobs. And on special occasions they all fill the house with banter, singing and good food. But “I know they hurt,” she says. “I know they do.”
Outside of her house, on the red brick, in black marker reads: Faheem Thomas Childs RIP. Her younger boys keep the ink fresh. Two of her daughters have memorialized Faheem with tattoos. The younger ones usually wear something of his - a jacket, a shirt - with pride.
Her son Cardeen, 19, is quiet, too quiet, and idles around the house, afraid to go outside, while her teenaged daughter Cashay often misses her curfew. “I don’t know what’s in her mind,” Arnold says. “She won’t let me in.”
Cashay braided Faheem’s hair the night before he was shot. When they do talk about him, she just cries and cries, says Arnold, asking why.“I don’t know why,” she replies. “Things happen. That’s why I’m trying not to let things happen to you.”
A few years ago, she told a failing Cardeen: “You can’t blame your brother’s death on messing up in school. You have to do what you have to do in school so you can succeed in life. He don’t want y’all to stop here.”
But in many ways, Arnold remains frozen.
“I don’t go out. I can’t trust nobody. I don’t do nothing, but sit and cry,” she says, tears flowing from her eyes. “I miss my baby.”
At night, Arnold often just stares out her bedroom window. She can’t sleep. She sometimes hears a creek on the stairs, and “I know it’s Faheem,” she says.
Some nights she hears gunshots.
“The neighorhood is the neighorhood,” she says. “We mind our business. We go on with our life. I just pray to God nothing else happens to my children.”
After Faheem was shot, there were prayer vigils, rallies, meetings, promises and vows. Now Arnold says many of those who united with her in her tragedy have disappeared. She doesn’t say it bitterly, just as a matter of fact.
Then she says her manager painted the front of her house, fixed her screen door, and hung an address plate, she believes for the media. Now she waits for minor repairs to her worn house.
Thousands attended Faheem’s funeral, which Arnold calls as “ridiculous,” adding how churches “were bidding on my son’s funeral,” she believes to increase their membership and gain publicity.
“I wanted it to be private,” she says of the services. “This is something that’s hurting me. It’s not a show. I just wish it never happened.”
Weeks later, thousands more marched walked through her battered neighborhood in a “Save The Children” march, calling for an end to violence. It ended with a rally outside Faheem’s elementary school. Arnold remembers walking off the makeshift stage in tears, disgusted by cheers of “We did it! We did it.”
“Did what?,” she remembers thinking.
Faheem was one of more than a dozen schoolchildren murdered that school year, on pace to be one of the district's deadliest years in a decade.
“The march was to try and change things, stop the violence,” Arnold says. “When Poppy got killed it was kids getting shot. Then it was the guys getting shot, drug shots. Now every time you turn around a cop is getting shot. It’s always something,” Arnold says. “It can never be peace.”
At her kitchen table, Arnold pulls out a box, and shifts through the stacks of letters and sympathy cards.“People gave from their heart and I felt every bit of it,” she says, holding up a Valentine from one of Faheem’s classmates.
She then pulls out a flyer from a benefit held in her son’s name, which she says she didn’t even know about. The ticket prices were $100. She wonders to what end.
During that time, an anonymous donor called the funeral home to donated a tombstone. When Arnold called several months after Faheem was buried, the offer was gone.
At Mount Peace cemetery at 31st and Lehigh, a metal pole stands in a patch of dirt. On the front, Faheem Thomas Childs is typed on a laminated index card, yellowed and worn.
“My son doesn’t even have a tombstone,” Arnold says, tears rolling down her face.”
This year, like every year since, Arnold and her family visit Faheem’s grave. There they place flowers and candles.
"I don’t want to forget him,” Arnold says, tears flowing. “I’ll never forget him. I miss my baby. I miss him.”
The family also lights candles in front of his school by the gate where he was shot down, where thousands of people once marched.
“We should keep the change going. Keep trying to make the schools safe. Keep trying to make the streets safe. We can do it again. It just doesn’t have to stop from February 11, 2004. It can keep going.”
Across from the brown sofa, a large portrait of Faheem peers down from the wall. It was drawn by an inmate in state prison, where Arnold once spoke about how violence stole her son.
One bitter cold February morning, five years ago, as Faheem Thomas Childs walked to school in his North Philadelphia neighborhood, two groups of men, feuding for days, pulled out guns and fired more than 40 shots at each other.
A crossing guard was struck in the foot. At the schoolyard gate, Faheem was struck in the head, above his right eye. The third grader fell to the ground, onto his backpack. A police officer rushed him to the hospital. He died three days later.
A mother grieved, and a city was outraged.
Five years later, Arnold’s tears come easily, along with anger. She’s pained with the thought that her son, known in the family as Poppy, with his brown face, tight cornrows and warm, almond eyes, who became a national poster child for the city’s raging gun violence, has been long forgotten.
“What are we going to do to keep the change going? What are we going to do to keep these streets safe for our children? Everybody was around that day, where are you today?
“In this neighborhood, I can say they tried,” she continues. “But it is a change that went on?” She pauses. “No.”
Arnold, 37, says she remembers that morning - February 11, 2004 - like it was yesterday.
Faheem didn’t want to go to school. He said his stomach hurt, she remembers, but soon enough he was feeling better.
“Are you sure you wanna to go?,” she asked.“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Arnold gave him her usual run down: “Go straight to school. Watch out for cars. Don’t talk to strangers. And if somebody’s shooting, duck.”
“Mommy, gimme a kiss,” Faheem said, then ran out the door. He left without his two sisters. He didn’t want to be late.
Today, when Arnold walks three of her children to Faheem’s old elementary school, she takes the long route, careful to avoid the path he walked that day.
Outside the school, she notices the mural that includes his likeness has faded.
“My brother got hurt over there didn’t he mom,” her son Rasheen, 7, often asks. Arnold just nods, eyeing a police officer standing in the school yard.
Two men accused in Faheem's death, Kennell Spady and Kareem Johnson, were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Police believe at least three other men were involved, but no additional arrests have been made. No one is takling.
The parent patrols have dissipated. The school has a new principal. Faheem’s old classmates have long graduated.
“Every time I walk in that school I get a cold breeze,” Arnold says. “I don’t see no memory of my son.”
“They should have something in there saying ‘In Memory Of Faheem’ or ‘Stop The Violence,’ something ... It could have been 10 or 15 more kids just stretched out on the pavement.”
Arnold, a stay-at-home mom, has eight children, including one step son; the oldest 21, the youngest 6-year-old. And she has seven grandchildren. Shortly before Faheem was killed, the Philadelphia Housing Authority moved Arnold, who once lived in a homeless shelter, to a three-story row house in North Philadelphia to accomodate her growing family.
Faheem’s father lives up the street.
The family is close knit, closer now, she says. The older ones have graduated high school and have decent jobs. And on special occasions they all fill the house with banter, singing and good food. But “I know they hurt,” she says. “I know they do.”
Outside of her house, on the red brick, in black marker reads: Faheem Thomas Childs RIP. Her younger boys keep the ink fresh. Two of her daughters have memorialized Faheem with tattoos. The younger ones usually wear something of his - a jacket, a shirt - with pride.
Her son Cardeen, 19, is quiet, too quiet, and idles around the house, afraid to go outside, while her teenaged daughter Cashay often misses her curfew. “I don’t know what’s in her mind,” Arnold says. “She won’t let me in.”
Cashay braided Faheem’s hair the night before he was shot. When they do talk about him, she just cries and cries, says Arnold, asking why.“I don’t know why,” she replies. “Things happen. That’s why I’m trying not to let things happen to you.”
A few years ago, she told a failing Cardeen: “You can’t blame your brother’s death on messing up in school. You have to do what you have to do in school so you can succeed in life. He don’t want y’all to stop here.”
But in many ways, Arnold remains frozen.
“I don’t go out. I can’t trust nobody. I don’t do nothing, but sit and cry,” she says, tears flowing from her eyes. “I miss my baby.”
At night, Arnold often just stares out her bedroom window. She can’t sleep. She sometimes hears a creek on the stairs, and “I know it’s Faheem,” she says.
Some nights she hears gunshots.
“The neighorhood is the neighorhood,” she says. “We mind our business. We go on with our life. I just pray to God nothing else happens to my children.”
After Faheem was shot, there were prayer vigils, rallies, meetings, promises and vows. Now Arnold says many of those who united with her in her tragedy have disappeared. She doesn’t say it bitterly, just as a matter of fact.
Then she says her manager painted the front of her house, fixed her screen door, and hung an address plate, she believes for the media. Now she waits for minor repairs to her worn house.
Thousands attended Faheem’s funeral, which Arnold calls as “ridiculous,” adding how churches “were bidding on my son’s funeral,” she believes to increase their membership and gain publicity.
“I wanted it to be private,” she says of the services. “This is something that’s hurting me. It’s not a show. I just wish it never happened.”
Weeks later, thousands more marched walked through her battered neighborhood in a “Save The Children” march, calling for an end to violence. It ended with a rally outside Faheem’s elementary school. Arnold remembers walking off the makeshift stage in tears, disgusted by cheers of “We did it! We did it.”
“Did what?,” she remembers thinking.
Faheem was one of more than a dozen schoolchildren murdered that school year, on pace to be one of the district's deadliest years in a decade.
“The march was to try and change things, stop the violence,” Arnold says. “When Poppy got killed it was kids getting shot. Then it was the guys getting shot, drug shots. Now every time you turn around a cop is getting shot. It’s always something,” Arnold says. “It can never be peace.”
At her kitchen table, Arnold pulls out a box, and shifts through the stacks of letters and sympathy cards.“People gave from their heart and I felt every bit of it,” she says, holding up a Valentine from one of Faheem’s classmates.
She then pulls out a flyer from a benefit held in her son’s name, which she says she didn’t even know about. The ticket prices were $100. She wonders to what end.
During that time, an anonymous donor called the funeral home to donated a tombstone. When Arnold called several months after Faheem was buried, the offer was gone.
At Mount Peace cemetery at 31st and Lehigh, a metal pole stands in a patch of dirt. On the front, Faheem Thomas Childs is typed on a laminated index card, yellowed and worn.
“My son doesn’t even have a tombstone,” Arnold says, tears rolling down her face.”
This year, like every year since, Arnold and her family visit Faheem’s grave. There they place flowers and candles.
"I don’t want to forget him,” Arnold says, tears flowing. “I’ll never forget him. I miss my baby. I miss him.”
The family also lights candles in front of his school by the gate where he was shot down, where thousands of people once marched.
“We should keep the change going. Keep trying to make the schools safe. Keep trying to make the streets safe. We can do it again. It just doesn’t have to stop from February 11, 2004. It can keep going.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment