According to Chicago police, the incident stemmed from a fight Thursday morning involving two groups of students from rival neighborhoods. After classes ended, the two groups of students began fighting again. Derrion Albert was walking to a bus stop when he was pulled into the melee. Video footage from WLFD Fox Chicago shows a group of teenagers fighting with at least one of them swinging a wood plank.

Cook County prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton told The Associated Press that Albert was an innocent bystander who was not part of either of the two factions that were fighting. He was knocked unconscious when he was allegedly hit in the head with a wooden board by 16-year-old Eric Carson  and punched in face by another teen. When he was able to regain consciousness and trying to get up, the honor student was reportedly attacked by five teenagers and struck in the head again with a wooden board by 18-year-old Eugene Riley and stomped in the head by 19-year-old Silvonus Shannon.

Shannon, Riley, Carson and 18-year-old Eugene Bailey were arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

While, tragically, it is nothing new for Black teenagers to lose their lives to violence in cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans, what was interesting about this case was the fact that the only life that was taken belonged to an honor student who was striving to do the right thing and had nothing to do with the neighborhood rivalry that turned deadly.

Immediately I was reminded of the riveting HBO series “Brave New Voices” from earlier this year during which two young men from Chicago used spoken word to chronicle the hopes and dreams of the many young people they knew whose lives were lost to violence. The two young men spoke with great passion and in great detail about their friends, neighbors and former elementary school classmates whose lives were tragically cut short. I, like all who were in the audience for the HBO performance, was blown away.

Far too often we forget that those who lose their lives were living, breathing human beings with hopes, dreams, and people who loved them. These are people with mothers, grandparents, siblings, teachers, neighbors and friends who loved them. That love just doesn’t go away.

While their lives are tragically ended by gun violence, the pain, grief and tragedy continue for those they left behind. Acts of violence forever alter the lives of those left behind and leave holes that can never be filled.

Just five days before Derrion’s death, on Sept. 19, 17-year-old Corey McClaurin was gunned to death as he sat in his car around the corner from his home. Described by his father as “an average teenager with average grades,” the senior at Simeon Career Academy High School had hoped to go to college “down South” and perhaps pursue a career in music. Friends and family members said the teen stood out in the neighborhood because he came from a two-parent household and his parents were able to give him most of the things he wanted, including the Monte Carlo in which he was killled — a gift on his 16th birthday.

Derrion Albert was actually the third Chicago high school student slain since the start of the school year. The first was Corey Harris of Dyett High School, who was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer. Although police say Corey Harris was killed after the off-duty cop saw him shooting at another person, a witness told Harris’ family that Harris, the captain of his basketball team “did not have a gun” and “that a lot of boys were running and the officer was just shooting in the crowd of boys.” The witness also told the victim’s mother “that police appeared to recover a weapon from the top of a nearby garage.”

Peter Thomas, an Oak Park businessman who once owned a restaurant where Corey Harris’ mother worked, told The Chicago Sun-Times that he had known Harris for years.

“He’s been in my home dozens of times,” Thomas said. “I’ve been on vacation with him. Corey was a straight arrow. He had none of the machismo or swagger of a gangbanger. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Teen murder is a problem that Chicago knows well.

The Associated Press reported last week that Chicago has seen a sharp rise in fatal teen violence over the past three years. “Before 2006, an average of 10 to 15 students were fatally shot each year,” AP writer Karen Hawkins wrote. “That climbed to 24 fatal shootings in the 2006-2007 school year, 23 deaths and 211 shootings in the 2007-2008 school year and 34 deaths and 290 shootings last school year.”

That’s outrageous and there’s no other word for it but genocide.

But what happened last month and over the past three years in Chicago could — and does — happen all over America.

The murders of Derrion Albert, Corey McClaurin and Corey Harris and that of Christopher Evans of New Orleans — a college freshman who recently was carjacked and murdered by two young men from his neighborhood who reportedly were jealous of the victim’s car — are stark reminders that it’s no longer enough for us to challenge our children to do the right thing and strive to do their best.

We must be vigilant and relentless about keeping them safe and making certain that every child gets what he or she needs.

Those for whom their families aren’t a haven and a shelter from the harsh realities of life sometimes find themselves looking for acceptance elsewhere and drawn into street gangs and a lifestyle that leads to incarceration and/or death.

We can’t afford to lose our children to either.

Apparently, those who have been let down by their families, teachers and their communities have no qualms about taking the lives of those with promising futures. For far too many young people, life has simply lost its meaning and value.

If what is happening to young Black men in America was happening to any other group of young men, this would be on the evening news every day and every resource would be used to address the problem.

President Obama said last week that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be in Chicago this week to discuss Albert’s murder with school officials, students and residents. While that’s commendable, it will simply be another photo op if those concerned don’t seize the moment and make a long-term commitment to finding solutions and addressing the issues that have plagued young Black men for decades.

We don’t have the luxury of only getting together to talk about these issues when problems arise or once a year at Black History Month and MLK observances.

These problems plague youth of color all day every and need to be addressed relentlessly by those who are committed to finding solutions.

If the president, legislators, governors or mayors are unable or unwilling to do something about this dire situation, it’s up to the rest of us to take matters into our own hands.

There are many things we can do to support and protect young people. That includes getting involved in neighorhood schools and making sure that our communities are safe. We do that by organizing neighborhood teams to watch for trouble during hours when teens are likely to be traveling to and from school, organizing car pools for students attending schools in violence-prone neighborhoods, finding jobs for young people, getting to know the children in the neighborhood and letting them know they can call on us if and when they need us, providing safe harbor for kids who are being harassed or targeted by bullies, making sure that every kid in school has enough to eat, clean uniforms and a quiet place to study, and generally lookng out for everyone.

One thing is certain: We can’t afford to do nothing. We’ve already seen the results of that option.

This article was originally published in the September 5, 2009 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper