When Does It Go from Anger to Homicide?

My cousin Mitchell was thirteen years old when he was shot to death in the back of a school on Grant Ave. in the Bronx.  At what point do children who get into fistfights start thinking about killing each other instead of fighting each other?


Whatever happened to the good old days when two kids, two teenagers, or two grown men could get into a one on one, mano y mano fist fight?  They could fight, shake hands afterwards and it would be done.  I don't know what age young people, maybe ten, eleven, or twelve, stop wanting to fight and start wanting to kill each other.

When my cousin Mitchell was murdered, I was fourteen years old.  I never conceived in my mind, the thought of killing a person.  The person that killed him was fifteen years old.  I guess that was the turning point when I became a person that could consider killing another human being.

Do you think to yourself, if it wasn't a crime, I would kill this muthafucker?

Read more: Ghetto Bastard: A Memoir (Volume 1) and Ghetto Bastard 2 (Volume 2) both on Amazon.

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