ATLANTA — For many Atlanta families, who can only try to get through each day under the weight of profound, suffocating grief, there is intense interest in what more Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is going to do to help.
Their city’s crime has shattered their hearts.
For Glenda Mack, her grief, she knows, is not hers alone.
Not in Atlanta.
“I pray every day for all of these parents who have lost kids,” Mack said Tuesday. “It’s just not right.”
Mack, through her tears, wonders what more she could do to help the parents, and the city, and the mayor.
She would like Mayor Bottoms to consult with her and all the families who, like her, have lost loved ones to homicide during the city’s current and seemingly uncontrolled surge in violent crimes.
Next week, Mack will mark three months since the grandson she reared, 12-year-old David Mack, was shot and killed near their home, in some woods off Shirley Street in southwest Atlanta.
No suspects, yet. The reward in the case: $10,000.
Mack mourns for David; for 8 year old Secoriea Turner, shot and killed in July; for 7-year-old Kennedy Maxie, shot and killed in December; for 15 year old Diamond Johnson, shot and killed this past weekend; for some two dozen children, and dozens more adults—also someone’s children—who were shot and killed in Atlanta during the past year.
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“I would tell her (the mayor),” Mack said, “I know that she’s a mother, and I know Keisha a little bit. She doesn’t live too far from where I live in southwest Atlanta. So she knows about southwest Atlanta, for sure... I think she needs to meet with the parents of these kids. That would help."
“I think we need more police officers out here on the streets,” Mack said, “they need to be out here in force. Letting us see ‘em. And that’s not happening.”
And Mack wants people to come forward to help police find violent criminals, and to help police solve David’s homicide.
“Because they don’t really want to get involved. They don’t want to get shot at, either. But they don’t want to get involved. Yes, we, as people, we, as neighbors, gotta do more. And I’m not saying we gotta act like police officers or anything like that. If we see something, we need to say something. And people are just not doing that.”
Mack said she is hyper-aware, since David was killed, of the increases in violent crimes that are spreading torment and grief not just through Atlanta, but through the region, as well.
“I think the mayor needs to consult the whole of metro Atlanta,” Mack said, “it’s not just Atlanta. All of these people in charge need to get together, because it’s not just happening in Atlanta. It’s happening all over the metro area. I look at it on TV all the time. Kids getting killed.”
Glenda Mack is urging City Hall--whatever more the mayor is going to do to combat crime, do it big, and do it now.
“Something’s gotta happen,” Mack said, wiping tears from her eyes. She took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m doing the best I can. I’m doing the best I can. I know I can’t get my son back—my grandson. I raised him from a baby. I can’t get him back. Our grandkids are not supposed to die before us, and our kids aren’t. Sometimes it’s a little hard. And I know all of these other parents, it’s a little hard, too. And I’m hoping soon that somebody will be brought to justice.”
So she prays--for help for her city.