Liberty City Gun Violence Claims Another Teen's Life
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- In the Liberty Square Public Housing Complex of Miami, another impromptu memorial signals another fatal shooting of a young person.
Just before 9 p.m. Thursday night, off NW 67th Street and 12th Avenue, officers arrived to find 18-year-old Antquinisha Flowers and her 17-year-old cousin, Arthur Mann, suffering from gunshot wounds.
Flowers would not survive.
"I've been crying all day, all night, trying to just keep myself together," said her mother Shanell Flowers.
At a news conference, community leaders lamented the killing field the inner city has become.
"Think about the children who won't be able to play today, tomorrow, years to come," said Council member Sarah Smith, in tears. "Think about the kids who won't be able to go to school. To become someone special."
Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho expressed his dismay on Twitter.
Less than a week into the school year, two victims gunned down last night in community. Thoughts and prayers with them and all our children
— Alberto M. Carvalho (@MiamiSup) August 26, 2016
Silence equals complicity. #SeeSomethingSaySomething pic.twitter.com/MdBNBOGpGM
— Alberto M. Carvalho (@MiamiSup) August 26, 2016
"Every time one of our children is shot or killed, it just brings it up all over again," said David Jenkins, who has been speaking out for years.
Jenkins' 9-year-old daughter Sherdavia was shot dead in the same complex 10 years ago.
And the pattern is generational for Flowers. Her grandmother was shot to death on the very same spot the teen was in 2003.
"My mom got killed, now my sister's child," said the victim's aunt, Lakisha Flowers. "How many kids and how many people are they gonna take from us before anybody come out and help us? We need help."
It's a seemingly never-ending cry from a community terrorized and grief-stricken by guns.
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at (305) 471-TIPS.
