Rape of Dallas mother puts emphasis on need to protect women and children

by Shawn Williams of of Dallas South

Last Friday I received the following text message from a friend of mine:

This incident occurred at Southwind Apartments on Wheatland Road. On my way to Friendship-West that night, I saw 4 news trucks set up in and around the complex.

Channel 8 reported the events by saying “the man forced his way into the 22-year-old woman’s unlocked apartment in the 1400 block of West Wheatland Road around noon. Five children, some of whom belonged to the woman, were in the apartment at the time, police said.”

In November there was a triple shooting at the same complex. NBC 5 reported the story as such:

The same friend who lives in Southwind told me this shooting was drug related. Late 2006, our men’s ministry walked Southwind after another shooting.

I bring all this up not to say shut down Southwind (though all options must be explored), but to say we have to protect our women and our children. Apartment complexes throughout the nation have become hotbeds of violence where residents can’t come outside and now aren’t safe in their own units.

It looks like in this instance the neighbors took justice into their own hands. Channel 8 says “the woman ran out of her apartment to tell her boyfriend….He and his friends confronted the suspect in the apartment and a fight ensued.”

Fortunately the events were not as severe as those in the Dunbar Village rape (see Blogging for Justice post here for more on Dunbar Village) but the conditions are similar. It shouldn’t have to come to citizen violence, our leaders and our communities throughout the nation must confront this issue head on.

Racial injustice, racial violence and hate crimes cannot not be tolerated. They should be vigorously investigated and prosecuted.

But too often our leaders are taking the easy way out, turning a blind eye to black male on black female crime. They are leaving sisters like this one in Southwind, and the sister at Dunbar Village to fend for themselves.

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