Murder in Milwaukee

If you see someone fall down, are you supposed to help them back
up? I saw him fall, but I knew it was impossible for me to help him back up
I know he would never get back up. But I felt guilty for hot holping, even
though I knew that helping would’ve put me in danger.
I heard the crack of a bullet, and then thirteen more follow. There was
a lot of screaming and shoving on the other side of the intersection that I no-
ticed, but I didn’t think too much about it. I lloked over again to see a group
of teenage boys in an altercation after the initial gunshots. The second round
of fire began and the crowd dispersed like a school of fish being attacked by
a shark. The one boy that I happened to be looking at, was coincidentally the
victim. I unknowingly watched him take his last breath, and then collapse in
the middle of the street. My dad yelled “get down!” in the most shaky and
scared voice I have ever heard, as police officers surrounded the scene. My
sister immediately started crying, and my brother quickly followed after be-
ing scooped up by my mother. I remember asking my dad if we could go into
the hospital across the street to take cover, but he quickly denied and told
me that we’d be safer if we fled the scene. He grabbed my hand for our mile
walk back to the car. The further away we got from the scene, the quieter the
city became. I’m pretty sure I cut off the circulation in my dad’s hand from
squeezing it the entire way back to the safety of our red Chrysler minivan.
I have so many questions.
I can only imagine the immense amount of guilt lying on the perpetra-
tor’s shoulders. Yet he is the one who put it there. Is he okay with committing
a sin? Did it even affect him? How can he not feel guilty? He likely knew the
consequences of his actions since he continued to follow through with it. Or
did he not and he was just being irrational? He must’ve had a plan, and he
executed it.
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 Garret 2020
I know that if I killed someone, I would feel guilty.
I never did tell my parents that I watched a fourteen year old boy get
his life taken away from him, which feels like a sin just not telling them. But I
think that I was just afraid of them thinking that I would need to seek some
sort of medical treatment for PTSD or something crazy like that. My fourteen
year old self thought like that. Now I sit here and I think about how abso-
lutely insane it is that I saw someone get murdered. Like I say it out loud and
people think I’m crazy. I still have not told my parents the whole truth about
that night. But that sin feels nowhere near as large of a sin as murder. I hope
that suspect feels the guilt forever.

Mya van Zanten

Morose Victorian Children: Lottie and Lysander, Age 10

Honor Torrance
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