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Like many churches in urban centers of the United States, Arch Street Presbyterian Church has a long history. I would share their story, and hope that, in this city one day soon, conscience would trump silence.A Picture of the Original Sanctuary on the Corner of 18th and Arch St. I told them that I all I could do was what I tried to do for every other family living in the limbo of a loved one's unsolved slaying.
#TRAP STREET PHILADELPHIA TRIAL#
I told them that the following week, I was going to meet a mother who prays every day that an eyewitness - who was stabbed after his statement against the person he says killed her son was posted on social media - won't shut down at the trial next year. I told them about the mother who still holds rallies on the street where her son was executed in the middle of the day in hopes that one day someone will speak up. I told them about the mother who relentlessly pressured the police and neighbors she knew could help until someone was finally arrested for her son's murder. Sometimes, they get them, sometimes they don't. Instead, I told them about the other families who, years, decades even, after a loved one's murder, have kept pushing for answers. I had no more of an answer for them than I've had for any of the countless families whose loss is compounded by silence. If I were going to be honest, I had no answer. What they were really asking me was how they could compel someone to do the right thing. I struggled to answer, mentioning the rallies and posters that other families have tried, before finally conceding that I had no idea. Where is the person who will stand up for Samir? the family wondered.Īnd then, the question came: What did they need to do, what more did they need to do, to get justice for Samir? She testified and helped put the shooter in prison for life. Years ago, when Samir's mother was just a baby, her father had been gunned down, and a friend had bravely stood up against threats. Seven months after Samir was killed, the family is frustrated and disappointed and angry: Shouldn't someone have been held accountable by now? They know the drill, how sometimes deep neighborhood connections, misguided loyalties, and fear - real and imagined - keep people silent.īut his grandmother especially doesn't want to hear any of it. But she kept hearing his voice, feeling the presence. "It burns," he told the neighbor of the bullets that had coursed through him.Īfter her son's death, Tahira Fortune tried to go back to the house. Later, she found out that her son had managed to run from the rear of the house to a neighbor's house. His mother, Tahira Fortune, had rushed to the house after getting a frantic call from his girlfriend, only to be stopped by police outside and rendered numb by the sight of yellow crime tape and 17 markers for the spent shell casings. More likely, Samir, who was on house-arrest for an unrelated incident at school, was the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he had been the intended target, though they searched for a motive. 10 that more than a few times his mother, grandmother, and aunt ended up talking over one another.Ī lot of people knew exactly what happened. They had theories, so many theories about what happened Feb.