Youth at summit write commercial
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Violence and difficult personal circumstance are not excuses for missing school, students said at a summit Saturday focused on curbing truancy and violence among teens.
“As a student, you have to have a purpose in your heart,” said Tia Benton, a senior at Scotlandville Magnet High School. “There is no excuse. You have to rise above your obstacles.”
Benton was one of about 20 area middle and high school students who attended the summit sponsored by the 100 Black Men of Metro Baton Rouge at the Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center.
Their feedback will shape a media campaign targeting the Baton Rouge area’s 56,000 youth, said John Smith, 100 Black Men of Metro Baton Rouge’s vice president for programs.
The campaign also will include a commercial written by the students, he said.
Images presented in music and in movies make guns and violence seem glamorous, some students said.
However, gun violence is far from glamorous, East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Sid Gautreaux told the group.
Gautreaux recounted the recent shooting deaths of Patricia Aldridge, 40, and her son, Ronald Thacker Jr., 21, who were killed in front of their home after an altercation with two boys in their teens.
A 16-year-old was identified as the shooter, and a 15-year-old has also been arrested in the slayings, the sheriff said.
“He’s 16 years old and he’s looking at life in prison,” Gautreaux said. “Once that bullet leaves that gun, there’s no taking it back.”
Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore and prosecutors also shared statistics on the prevalence of juvenile crime.
The District Attorney’s Office reviews an average of 8,000 cases involving juveniles a year, most of them involving youths 15 through 17 years of age, Moore said.
“The people who are killing each other are between 15 and 25,” Moore said.
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