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| HARRIS: Crafting bill on proper funeral conduct |
What really happened was that the deceased person was involved, in life, with multiple women.
FOR
HIS FUNERAL, several of them showed up – thinking they would be playing the
role of the “grieving widow” (he wasn’t married). When the women discovered
each other’s presence, things became heated.
People
attending the funeral began taking sides with the individual women, and yes, a
few of those individuals had gang ties.
Anyway,
a brawl broke out at gravesite, which caused someone to call the police. The
sounds of sirens in the distance wound up being sufficient to break this
incident up.
When
police arrived, there was hardly anybody left. Police wound up arresting nobody
because anybody who would have done anything worth a criminal charge was gone.
Which is why my editor at the newspaper I wrote for back then ultimately
decided to ignore this incident, and this here is the first time I have written
anything about it.
IT’S
ALMOST FUNNY. That is, if anything about a funeral service can be somber. The
deceased who, if he hadn’t already been dead, likely would have faced a serious
tongue-lashing (and maybe a few physical blows) from the multiple ladies he was loving during life!
The
scary part is that it seems such behavior is becoming more commonplace in
certain quarters – to the point where state Sen. Napoleon Harris, D-Harvey, now
feels compelled to put together a bill that could create tougher criminal
penalties for such behavior.
He
is working with funeral home directors to create laws that would have harsh
penalties for using a firearm or other weapon while attending a funeral.
In
theory, it’s the same as saying crimes near schools are more severe, or that
using a weapon in general in a menacing manner that is worthy of a harsher
punishment.
MUCH
OF THE problem, however, is that these incidents often are occurring in
neighborhoods where street gangs have accumulated significant influence – often
through intimidation.
The
Chicago Sun-Times reported this week that funeral directors in certain South
Side neighborhoods often wind up turning over the guest books they put together
for mourners over to the police – who use them to try to figure out if gang
members are attending the funerals of rival gang members for the explicit
purpose of causing a violent ruckus.
For
the record, activists at a press conference this week say they know of at least
17 funerals that were disrupted by gang-related violence. In some cases, it’s
the people working in the funeral homes who wind up getting caught in the
crossfire.
Yes,
it’s an ugly situation. Although it’s also one that I’m not sure can be
addressed with tougher penalties – largely because I wonder if anyone who
thinks he’s carrying out an act of vengeance at a funeral is capable of thinking
straight.
THEY
MAY THINK they’re above the law. Or maybe they think they’re the ones who will
get away with it. Actually, it will be when communities rise up to let gang
members know how uninfluential they truly are that anything happens to eliminate
occurrences as stupid as these.
I’m
also wondering if the “gun nut” crowd will have the nerve to claim that such
restrictions impose on their right to bear arms. As though in their minds the
solution to this problem is to let everybody else carry a pistol so they can
fire back.
All
I know is that times have changed from an incident I covered at a cemetery on
the Northwest Side back when I worked for the now-defunct City News Bureau of
Chicago. Back then, several men of Serbian ethnic origins conducted an informal
“21 gun salute” at the gravesite of a friend – firing off pistols into the air.
I
still remember talking to the daughter of one of the men arrested who couldn’t
comprehend why there was an issue. Doesn’t everybody do this? Perhaps she was
just three decades or so ahead of her time in her way of thinking.
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