Washington Examiner Columnist Harry Jaffe writes this week about Elaine Coleman‘s death in Northeast DC.
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray was alarmed enough by Sunday’s shooting of 19-year-old David Lee Robinson to show up at a vigil and express his exasperation.
“He was being robbed for his Nike tennis shoes,” the mayor said. “A life for a pair of Nike tennis shoes? Come on, ladies and gentlemen. It is time for us to be able to end this type of tragic violence in our society.”
Young David’s demise in a shootout on Foote Street Northeast was one of the first homicides this year of the senseless variety that take too many lives in our town.For a type of murder that might be easier to prevent, I would direct the mayor to the killing of Elaine Coleman. A much-loved resident of the Kingman Park neighborhood in Northeast, she was stabbed to death Dec. 4 by her boyfriend, according to charging documents.
Add it up: A man stabs a person to death with scissors, pleads to manslaughter, gets eight years and serves five. Co-workers hear the man threaten to kill his girlfriend. They do nothing. The judicial system failed Elaine Coleman. Smith’s co-workers didn’t report his threats. They failed her, too.
Mayor Gray would have more impact and save more lives if he talked up this case and strengthened the system against domestic violence.
Read the full column here.
