This could be just about any residential street in mid-west North America. Quiet, neat, plenty of places for kids to play. The school bus which is seen every day is a part of life. That was this neighborhood until
two-days-ago when gun shots erupted and fractured the quiet. Within seconds a van speeds off and a ten-year-old boy is laying on this very road, hit by a bullet because some scum wanted his phone and his shoes… Crazy, right?
Two brothers, 16 and 10 walking down this quiet street and dirt bags who have seen too many bad guy movies or taken too much of their own heroin, try to rob them. The sixteen-year-old tries to shield his brother before the shot and the bullet thankfully hits just the younger boys shoulder, breaking a bone and shattering his shoulder blade. How quickly does a young man go from “All I Do Is Win” 
while smiling over his freshly snagged bass to post-surgical tubing running across his arm? He definitely ‘WON’ again, by surviving this attack. What about you? Could you have won? What did these boys do correctly to help them ‘WIN’? What else, if 
anything, could they have done?
TRAVEL in PAIRS 
(Traveling in grapes can be pressing!)
STAY in AREAS YOU KNOW 
TRAVEL in DAYLIGHT (It was 1:30 in the AFTERNOON!)
Carry a Cellphone to summon help 
(That was a double-edged sword this time)
Stay Calm 
(As calm as you can when someone is shooting at you!) Kudos to big brother for trying to shield his younger sibling!
Carry a Firearm 
(A great idea but even big-brother is still five years too young!)
Avoid Trouble 
(Sometimes trouble is on you before you know it! If possible – RUN!) And if you must, according to your ideology, have a ‘victim’… Let the only victim be the huge bowl of ice cream that these guys decimate as they celebrate!
Think about you, on a sunny, VERY early Spring-like day, walking along in your own neighborhood with your brother. How could you be Situationally Aware? How far away was the van when first the boys saw it? Was there anything about the way the van was driving that might have given away that trouble in the form of either intoxicated/drugged idiots or just plain idiots was heading their way? If such an early warning would have been possible, the maybe… I mean MAYBE, they might have run to safety.
These questions are not meant to demean or second-guess either of these two young men! As we have already stipulated, THEY ARE HEROES! What we do want you to do is to THINK! Before the situation unfolds, have you looked for an escape route? MOST amateurs are terrible shots at a target and even worse at a moving target… so when your options are 1) Stand Here and Get Shot or 2) Come on feet – don’t fail me now! If you have a chance to run… by all means, go for it!
THIS NEIGHBORHOOD NEEDS THE CHILDREN TO BE ABLE TO PLAY SAFELY THIS COMING SUMMER WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT A COUPLE OF 
DIRTBAGS IN A VAN.
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT WHO SHOT THIS BRAVE YOUNG MAN, CALL EITHER THE MASSILLON POLICE DEPARTMENT 330-832-9811 or SCI at 330-956-9561
Note: All photos from open sources
Doc Riggs' Ministry Minute 