The Greeley Tribune ran a brief item that should have been a front-page siren. Reporter Anne Delaney notes an 18-year-old male was shot at Centennial Park on Thursday night. Police described an altercation between people in a red truck and a gray sedan. The suspect, a white male, left in the gray sedan. The victim was pronounced dead at North Colorado Medical Center. Investigators called it an isolated incident and asked the public for tips.
That is the entire civic obituary. Short copy. Short attention. Long shadow. As a Weld County Commissioner serving on the Juvenile Services Planning Committee for the 19th Judicial District, I spend time on youth prevention and alternatives to detention. I also sit on a subcommittee focused on what gets labeled as “gun violence.” I hate that term. Violence is the disease. A firearm is a tool. The culture shaping the kid is the factory. And in Weld County, too many kids are getting their hands on guns through unlocked cars, loose nightstand storage, and plain old adult negligence. Rights require responsibility. Period.
The Bullet Point Brief
• The facts are stark. A fight at Centennial Park, one teen dead, suspect fled, police say isolated, investigation ongoing. That should shake us.
• The write up was tiny. The fallout is not. A family lost a son. A community lost a future paycheck, a neighbor, a dad that could have been.
• Kids are arming up to face bullying and crew beefs. That is not bravado. That is insecurity with a trigger.
• Secure your firearms. Stop leaving guns in gloveboxes and nightstands. Support 2A and lock it up like you mean it.
• The deeper crisis is inside our kids. Empty faith, collapsing families, doom-scroll feeds, and a truth vacuum. That is a combustible mix.
My Bottom Line
I have opposed ballot-box moralizing from the start, but this is not about slogans. It is about a dead teenager and a county full of kids who think a pistol is armor for a broken heart. We fix this by doing the hard things. Families must parent. Churches must pastor. Schools must teach and enforce standards. County and city must fund what works and stop throwing grant confetti at fads. And yes, gun owners must be adults. Keep your rights. Keep your responsibilities closer.
If we want fewer tiny articles about dead children, then we need bigger commitments to the only institutions that can change a kid’s direction: family, faith, mentors, teams, work. Repent is not a bumper sticker. It is a blueprint. Turn back to God, back to each other, and back to the basics that keep a teenager alive through Friday night.
Mr. James, how can you get your wolf story so right and your Centennial Park story so wrong? You said you wished we could say the truth about whats going on with our youth. True Faith is the most important part. However, that’s not the first thing that has to happen. The first is this love affair with illegals. How many of us spend our time on others when we don’t pay attention to our own. We tend to believe our children will take care of themselves because they were born in the United States. Our children know better. We don’t go to church with them because others need us to translate, drive, take care of their children….and where do ours end up. Finding the bad guys. Either to be friends with or be bullied until something bad happens to wake us up. God doesn’t ask us to take care of others instead of our own, he asks us to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our family and then others. Why would people in Colorado want to take these beautiful wolves out of their homes where they were safe and put them in danger? Who knows, but I would say, it’s because some of us don’t have a place to belong. Just like our terrible State Government. Now our food banks haven’t enough food and our SNAP programs are not being replenished and our hospitals are not being repaid for services. These are the real problems that we face. We’ve created a monster in our State Government and our children are dying because of it. We are all at fault. When we moved to Greeley almost 30 years ago,
Greeley used to be a lovely small town that enjoyed its farms and our quiet roads. We had Potato Day and a Gang Unit. Just like the wolves, we are allowing people who don’t have a stake in our lives, decide what will happen to us.