'Trying to Hold On' Amid The Despair of D.C.'s Streets

"You got a lot of people walking around, traumatized or scared or angry or sad," Bowers said. "It's kind of an urban battleground. We never know how people's visions are limited when they live in an environment where bodies on the street are the norm."

'Trying to Hold On' Amid The Despair of D.C.'s Streets
Teen Looks to Dreams of Education, Peace
By Robert E. Pierre and Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 9, 2008; Page A01

Monica Watts, two months out of high school, buried another brother this week.



She barely remembers her older brother Donald, who was killed during a robbery more than a decade ago. Her baby brother, John, 18, was shot to death July 25 in Forestville as he tried to rob an off-duty officer, Prince George's County police said. He was a year her junior but felt like her twin. She called him "Streets," and he belonged to the cohort most likely to be killed: young, black, male, involved with the criminal justice system.

Since 1989, the year Watts was born, 6,000 homicides have been recorded in the District. By her count, Watts, at 19, has lost more than a dozen relatives and friends to violence since 2003. One was stabbed; the others were shot. Two brothers. Two boyfriends. A host of other young men and women in their teens and 20s.

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