Mental Health: SENSELESS VIOLENCE WHEN DOES IT STOP? (MISSION NOT IMPOSSIBLE) Written By: Caleb Thomas M.A. LMHC H ello Urban Experience magazine readers. I’m putting out a cry for help regarding the senseless crimes that continue to happen in our great city of Des Moines, as well as surrounding cities in the state of Iowa. As I think about the tragic incident that involved another school shooting and two lives’ lost, this is something we see on tv shows, or sound bites on the News, now being played out in our community. Unfortunately, this incident just happened within a year of our last school shooting related to gang violence, also taking the life of another young man. Sometimes it’s easy to say: “that’s just bad kids, those kids from the ghettos of Des Moines, parents are separated, divorced, no dad in the home, or those who live in poverty, etc.” Sadly, some of that may be true, however, what about the parents who are doing their best and working hard to ensure their kids stay away from the thugs, gang bangers and are desiring to see their sons succeed, graduate high school, and go on to become positive productive citizens in our society. Despite what may be going on with the parents, no parent has a desire to see their child join a gang, a lifestyle that will take them down 2 roads; 1. To Prison or 2. Death. This brings me to discuss the senseless violence that recently involved two young men killed, and a director of a program was seriously injured and could have been killed. I want to take a moment to acknowledge Mr. Will Holmes (A.KA. Mr. Will Keeps) of the Starts Right Here Program. A program he created to help at-risk youths get a fresh start. I mentioned in a previous article, the importance of giving back. Mr. Keeps didn’t have to take his time to give back, I believe he is using his God given purpose to give back to the Youths so they can avoid pitfalls. We praise God for his expediate recovery and hope he continues the great work he’s doing throughout the city of Des Moines. My prayers also go out to the families of the young men who lost their life’s and for the young man who did the senseless killings. Some of us may think, he did the crime now he’ll go and serve the time. However, it's more than that, how can we help other young men like him learn from this incident, how can the shooter be reformed, maybe allowed to help others like himself turn their life around. This incident played over and over on many News channels; I reflected and asked myself, what was going through his mind? His thoughts, even if he had to kill innocent people in the process. The bigger question is where did all the hate come from? We cannot leave the devil out of the details, the bible tells us Satan comes to “Steal, Kill and Destroy”. More disturbing was the other young men were trying to better their lives. Think how hard it is to walk away from enticements associated with the gang lifestyle, the cost is too high. Ask yourself, who wins in the end? We have two young men who will never get a chance to see the possibilities of their God given calling and one young man who may possibly spend the rest of his life behind bars, the only one winning in these senseless acts of violence is Satan. Ask yourself, how does a young man get to this point in life? The bible tells us having hate in one’s heart is the same as murder. Where does all the hate come from? Clinically we know young minds are easily shaped from many influences including environmental, social economic influences, biological factors, society norms and other disparities. So, it becomes easy for a young man to be influenced by a multitude of factors including self-will. How can we help change that mindset? We can start with programs, such as Starts Right Here, I encourage you to
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