When will we say not another?

Kaidyn Green. Remember this name.

So far this year, two boys in DC were taken away from their families, friends, teachers and those of us who would’ve been lucky to meet and get to know them at some point. Amir Fultz, a 10 year old, was the first. Amir’s father, Demetrius, also died in that crash.

Kaidyn and Amir join a list of children that include five-year-old Allison “Allie” Hart and four-year-old Zy’aire Joshua who were killed last year. Since the horrific massacre of 19 children and their two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, I’ve been wrestling with a truth that’s gnawed at me for years.

Through both cars and guns, we are letting children die in the District of Columbia.

That statement invokes a collective responsibility to keep children safe, to which some may say — implicitly or explicitly — “Not my kid, who cares?” In some ways, it distributes responsibility across those with power, those at the periphery of power (like myself), and those far removed from power.

But in an environment in which we all have a part to play, can we seriously say we’re doing enough to stop the killing of children in two of the most preventable and common ways? Firearms and traffic crashes are the leading causes of death in children between ages one and 19 years old, and in 2020, for the first time ever, gun deaths outstripped traffic deaths.

An intersection of tragedies

The 3500 block of Wheeler Road SE is etched in my mind for three reasons. First, it’s a stretch of road I traversed for years almost always from the inside of a vehicle, whether bus or car, growing up in between Washington Highlands and Congress Heights. The second is that it’s the block on which a gunman shot and killed 15-year-old Maurice Scott in 2019.

Maurice, a ninth grader, was walking a short distance from his home to Holiday Market, a corner store located in a tiny strip mall on Wheeler, where he was the victim of a drive-by shooting. I always remember that it was a car along with a gun that enabled Maurice’s fatal shooting and his killers’ swift escape. His murder remains unsolved.

Then, in 2021, a driver struck and injured two girls and their father at the intersection of Wheeler Road and Mississippi Avenue SE, a short walk from where Maurice was killed. The added insult is that the date of the crash, October 4, 2021, was Walk to School Day. Two months later, Kaidyn was struck by a driver and left paralyzed from the neck down until his tragic death earlier this month.

Whether it be by a driver behind the wheel of vehicles operated at speeds that science tells us kill or a depraved killer holding one of the hundreds of millions of firearms in circulation — legally and illegally – each year, we as a city are allowing children to be killed on DC’s streets. Too often we write off preventable tragedies as acts of God or as accidents. We treat crashes and shootings of children like they share the randomness of a lightning strike.

Right now, there are more cars and guns per capita in the United States than at any other point in our history, and those numbers continue to increase. In 2012, there were 439 vehicles per thousand Americans. That number now sits at 890 vehicles for every thousand Americans, including children. In 2018, the Washington Post estimated that there were 120.5 guns for every hundred Americans – more guns than people and the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world, by an enormous margin.

Meanwhile, guns and cars are both becoming deadlier. From guns made from plastics that are nearly untraceable and can be manufactured using 3D printers or cars that are heavier and faster, we are producing more and more machines designed to kill and machines that can kill — a distinction losing its taboo if the fine folks at one of the Big Three automakers are to be believed.

“Inevitability” is killing children

After hearing news of Kaidyn’s passing on June 6, I had yet another shock. Hours prior, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) emailed an update on planned improvements to the 3500 block of Wheeler Road SE. The email read, in part: “The section from Mississippi Avenue to Alabama Avenue will be constructed first and is scheduled to begin as early as the second half of June,” and attached was a door hanger to be distributed to the community starting the very next day.

What I and others who read that email likely had to wrestle with is a cruel truth: changes are coming, but not soon enough for Kaidyn. Not soon enough for the two children and their father who were struck, injured, and traumatized last October. The status quo, or more aptly the falsehood of inevitability, led to their deaths and injuries.

The victims’ families are left with questions that we, as a body politic, have to answer: “Why did this have to happen to my child?” and “Why didn’t anyone do anything sooner?”

Why was road design that enabled a reckless driver more important than protecting their child? Why did near unfettered access to a gun elsewhere allow some killer to take away their baby?

I don’t have a good answer, but my honest answer is: we insist on believing the falsehood of inevitability.

When will we say not another?

You can separate transportation, public safety, and public health in different departments and on different committees but that doesn’t change the reality that kids live their lives at the intersection of all those things — and that intersection is not safe.

We need to think about the safety of our streets in a holistic way. There are clear examples of what is possible when we accept that traffic violence is a systemic issue. Take a look at DC Councilmembers Janeese Lewis George’s and Christina Henderson’s complementary bills on safe routes to school and student safe passage.

Lewis George’s Safe Routes to School Expansion Regulation Amendment Act of 2021 addresses the physical infrastructure dangers that students and families face in line with the principles outlined by organizations like the Safe Routes to School Partnership. If passed, it would mandate all-way stops within a quarter-mile of a school. Not only would this improve safety for childrens and families, it would bring safety benefits to the broader community.

For example, had Lewis George’s bill been in place in April 2019, the intersection of 16th Street and V Street SE in Anacostia would’ve had an all-way stop. Abdul Seck was struck at this intersection after a driver ran a stop sign, struck another vehicle that was legally passing through the intersection, and redirected into the sidewalk and onto Abdul, who died the next day. Five people were also injured, along with two children.

It’s possible that had the second driver, who had no idea that another driver would strike them, been given the moment to stop, the crash could’ve been avoided. The day after Abdul’s death, DDOT made 16th and V Street an all-way stop, but implementation was haphazard. At a vigil for Abdul, Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White said, “It’s a reflection of the neglect that’s been happening from the city, including myself….We ought to be held accountable and do something about it, not just talk about the problem but be action oriented about the solution.”

Henderson’s student safe passage legislation builds on work begun by the State Board of Education and its sister agency the Office of Student Advocate, which has slowly been adopted by Mayor Muriel Bowser.

The Safe Passage Expansion Amendment Act of 2021, which draws from a 2019 version of the bill that never came to a vote before the Council, would, among other things, put more volunteers on the street during arrival and dismissal times and expand the number of “Safe Spots” like public libraries, places of worship, and local businesses where students can find refuge when they feel unsafe on the way to and from school. Currently, Safe Spots are limited to 3 corridors in Anacostia, Congress Heights, and on Minnesota Avenue.

These two bills, together, begin to move us toward a more comprehensive approach to safe streets.

Keeping kids safe means considering how gun and traffic violence are part of an interconnected, systemic issue in the city we have built. All we have to do is look at the 3500 block of Wheeler Road, 16th and V Street, or Knox Place SE to see the impacts of the status quo we choose to uphold. Safety improvement planning processes drag on in other neighborhoods, leaving those of us who track and care about child safety with a sense of dread: if needed upgrades continue to be subject to foot-dragging on the part of transportation agencies or reluctant communities, there will be another child victim whose name we can’t forget.

According to a statement provided by Kaidyn Green’s family attorney, in the months following the crash, he always smiled despite his injuries. It is my sincerest prayer that that smiling nine-year-old boy was comfortable in his final days with family. It won’t ever leave my mind that we let this baby down. We owed Kaidyn not just comfort but safety.

We owe it to the children who remain and who have yet to be born to commit to: “Not another child.”