Chapel Hill Murder (What the ????)

The mood on campus is palpable. Several of my students have already told me they knew her; she was apparently very friendly and outgoing. My thoughts are with those who knew and loved her.

http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2008/03/06/University/Vigil.Scheduled.For.Carson.At.7.P.m-3256496.shtml

What a terrible tragedy.  My heart goes out to her family.

it is very disturbing to think that a person was just hanging out, with a gun, at 5 am, in a quiet neighborhood in a quiet town,  looking for trouble. 

It is terribly sad that this has happened.

I don't know if I draw comfort or fear from the fact this appears to be a random act.

I do know this is every parent's nightmare and my thoughts are with the family. This is the greatest loss that I can ever imagine and I feel sad for her parents, family and friends, as well as the UNC community.

I talked with her a few times and found her to be as bright and personable as one might expect, but also very down to earth. It's hard to think about how she might have died.

I'm not going to jump right in and say this was a crime driven by drugs or even random because the investigation is still going on and, well, we don't know.

I am going to say that as a longtime local I feel a sense of shame that we've let the town disintegrate to the point where it is a dangerous place in the late evening and early morning.

For years, many people -- myself included -- have tried to tell local officials that they need to understand better what it's like to walk through downtown at 3 a.m. or even 11 p.m. Carson's predecessor, James Allred, grew up here and got that and one of his last acts in office was to push for call boxes and better lighting because many students did not feel safe. Carson was an advocate for downtown safety as well.

We have to question ourselves, particularly in how we look at downtown. It is not a nine-to-five or a nine-to-nine space. No matter what the vision is for it, the reality is that downtown can be a dangerous place. We are waiting for leadership on this issue.

Kirk Ross

Kirk,

I certainly think call boxes, better lighting, etc. are a good start but neither of those would have prevented the murders that occurred at VT and NIU. All violent crime doesn't occur under the cover of darkness or involve drugs. But from my perspective there is one common denominator to a majority of the violent crimes that occur in this nation but unfortunately several well-funded and well-organized groups have managed to keep handguns readily available to essentially anyone who wants one. While I'm deeply saddened by Ms. Carson's death I'm equally saddened by the fact that a minority of people in this country can block any earnest attempts at eliminating one of the components of such crimes.

I cannot imagine what Eve Carson's parents are going through, but that doesn't stop my heart and mind from going there and trying to imagine it. Condolences and sympathy don't begin to cover it, but with everyone else, I extend them to her family and friends.

It strikes me, too, that Eve's life and Eve's death are an exceptional demonstration of how the University and the town intertwine -- how each affects, depends on, and relates to the other. She herself was exceptional, but the ways in which she touched both communities remind us that we are, forever, "in this together."

Please look at the site's Calendar of Events. There will be a ceremony honoring Eve Carson Tuesday 3/11 @ 6pm at the Won-Buddhism Meditation Temple of Chapel Hill. It will be held every Tuesday at 6pm for the next 7 weeks. Thank you.

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained.” Helen Keller

Whereas Eve Carson, UNC Student Body President was an incredible asset to our entire community, working hard in leadership and service roles including her membership on the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees; co-president of the Honors Program Student Executive Board; as a member of the Committee on Scholarships, Awards and Student Aid; the Academic Advising Program; the Chancellor’s committee for University Teaching Awards; teaching and working at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill as part of UNC’s INSPIRE program; tutoring at Githens Middle School in Durham; coaching in the Girls on the Run of the Triangle, a character development program for girls ages 8-12 that uses running to teach values and a sense of self; and as a friend and ally to both those on campus and beyond, and

Whereas the life of this young woman was tragically stolen on March 5, 2008, leaving us now devoid of the incredible potential she held and more importantly, of a beautiful and loving human being, and

Therefore be it resolved that the Orange County Democratic Party wishes to recognize the service that Eve Carson provided to our community and to honor her life by continuing to serve the progressive causes she cared so deeply about, and to work with local authorities to do everything within our power to extinguish violent crime from our community.

I did not know Eve Carson but from everything I have read about her during this past week it is clear that she reached out to help many people on all levels. It now appears that the police have arrested at least two young men they believe committed this crime and that those young men might be from Durham. I'm afraid that the reaction of some (many) may be that this is another instance of Durham's criminal element coming to Chapel Hill to prey upon wealthier, more advantaged victims. I'm afraid that there will be a cry to "build a wall" around Chapel Hill to insulate ourselves from these elements.

I hope not. Eve reached out to many disadvantaged individuals to help them. I hope this heinous crime will inspire many to ask "How have we gotten here? Why are some members of our society becoming so disenfranchised that crime and assault and murder are even contemplated? " From what I've read about Eve, retaliation or recrimination would not ever enter into her mind. I believe she would be asking herself and others what could be done to solve the problems that beget such behavior. I hope that we as a community, not just in Chapel Hill but the Triangle and beyond, will begin to ask those questions in memory of Eve.

I do not believe in retaliation, but I do believe in accountability.  The root causes of crime are complex,  some of them rooted in societal and cultural inequities, but at the end of the day, no matter what I do, what society does,  what anyone does,  I cannot make you choose to do the right thing, nor can you make me.        

 No one made Eve Carson's killer pull the trigger.   That person has to be accountable  for that choice.   I want the legal system to do its job, and if someone is found guilty, I want that person to receive  the consequences that we have agreed on as a society are appropriate for that crime. 

 My job will be to continue to work in my sphere of influence to do the next right thing and be of service to others, and I believe that is the spirit of our community.    Walls don't help anything.   The City of Durham did not commit this crime,  a person did.

Pardon my cynicism, but I beieve there is such a thing as Too Late. These boys were never taught to distinguish right from wrong. Now they're in jail without bond. They probably regret having committed murder, but only because they got caught. Their public defenders have plenty of pitiful fodder to explain ignorant behavior. It's too late. They don't know right from wrong, and life in jail won't change that.

Like other correspondents, I hear much relief on the Chapel Hill side that the arrests were made in Durham. This convoluted thinking does our neighboring communities no good.

LMT and George, I apologize for my heavy-handed lament. Let's face it: it is too late for these two young men to escape from society's ills. By the time they get out of jail, assuming they're found guilty of murder, society won't welcome them back. I fervently hope that neither has children.

Mike S,

I don't know what politically divisive issues you think I'm trying to drum up support for. I think anyone my age (approaching 60) laments the fact that violence is much more prevalent today than when we were teens, young men (and sometimes women) resort to solving disputes with guns and knives (instead of words or, heaven forbid, fists) and dropping out of high school is too readily acceptable instead of doing everything possible to see that everyone gets an education or a vocational skill.

If you think my remarks trivalized Eve Carson's life then I suspect you have little or no concept of the values that drove her to spend so much time helping those less fortunate than herself.

LMT:  "They are just kids who somehow lost their way."

This might just be the most astonishing thing I have read on OP.  And I have been reading quite a while.

A kid who "loses his way," and whose adoptive father dies, does not pump lead into an innocent person to get money with her bank card.

It is one thing (and a right thing) to urge this community to avoid bloodthirstiness in the wake of this tragedy.  It is quite another (and a very wrong thing) to diminish the horror of the acts these young men appear to have knowingly chosen, or to compare what appears to be cold-blooded murder with some distraught teenager's "acting out."

Kudos to your comment Mike, I totally agree with you. Using this tragedy for the means of drumming up support to a politically divisive issue (gun control and death penalty) is very insensitive. Someone in our community was brutally murdered, it could have been anyone and it doesn't make it any less tragic.

We can blame parenting, we can blame the school system, and I'm sure some people will even go as far as blaming George Bush. I say that we stop pointing fingers at the causes and point the fingers at the individuals. These domestic terrorists prompt fear and have no respect for human life.

I believe that as individuals, we need to stop being so dependent on authorities and a system that is filled with red tape. Police, while being the most helpful and important figures in a community, aren't always going to quickly respond to an emergency. I think it's time for neighbors to watch out for each other and stop our petty differences. Every person should be able to defend themselves how they see fit. Domestic terrorists only understand force, let's not become victims and send a message to them that this kind of brutality will not be tolerated in any community.

"Using this tragedy for the means of drumming up support to a politically divisive issue (gun control and death penalty) is very insensitive."

Using this tragedy to drum up support for the politically divisive issue of the death sentence is just as insensitive.

Society 'R Us. When one of us is beautiful, inside and out, like Eve, we should all be pleased with our collective success in nurturing that goodness. When someone has so much anger as to do what these two young men did, we should all reflect on our collective failure and vow to do better. Blaming the victims, in either situation, is senseless. It accomplishes nothing--and it certainly does not honor the memory of Eve.

Mike and Eric seem to conflate "excuse" with "explanation". I don't think trying to understand the larger social and economic mechanisms that produce the high criminal rate that we have in the U.S. in any way excuses it.

On the other hand, someone who "wondered how soon it would be before people were blaming the gun, ignoring or trivializing the victim and making excuses for the killer(s)" would be trivializing the kind of work that people are doing to reduce our social ills. It's more likely that someone advocate for gun control because of heinous acts such as this than someone "use" a heinous act to support an independent dislike for guns.

Blaming a person or that person's family for a horrific act may feel good, but it doesn't prevent crime.

I think you would get some interesting answers if you asked some teens why they do what they do.  I've raised four teens and I have heard some pretty  headscratching  answers myself.   

I think a more interesting question  in this case might be,  how did  killing somebody get to be on your list of options?      

First, there has to be accountability and consequences for the choices these individuals allegedly made with no excuses what so ever. It does not matter their background, story or brain development. Given the proof, in the end, it was their decision to do what they did and we as a society have right to hold them accountable.

Having said that, it is not about any given political agenda. There is a massive failure of all most all our institutions when it comes to segments of our society. The failure is in our governmental leaders, our legislatures, our educational systems, health care both physical and mental, drug policies, even the news and entertainment media, and ourselves. Our law enforcement agencies are not equipped to handle the systemic problems but are in the front lines. And our basic response is to try and wall off the problem areas and build more and more prisons. This is not at all unnatural because at a base level we all want security.

I do not have the answers, just frustration from years and years of no end in sight. Remember that there were also two NCCU young ladies murdered recently. The pain all those families are suffering are just too much to imagine.

Again in the end, with these any individual as with these 2 predators (and that is the right word), there is no excuse for their actions.