EDITORIAL — A senseless killing over an imported feud

Police recently arrested five people accused of strafing a group of youths last Thursday in Barangay Yati, Liloan town, resulting in the death of a 16-year-old girl and the wounding of two of her companions.

According the police, the suspects are all members of a gang called the Bloods while the victims were members of a gang called the Crips.

This is a killing that didn’t have to happen in the first place.

The Crips and the Bloods have been feuding for decades, but theirs is a fight that started in California, USA, in the ‘60’s and for all intents and purposes belongs there. Their fight has no basis here and doesn’t have a reason to be here. To import that feud here in the Philippines where the youth have nothing to do with one group or another, let alone what they are fighting over, is nonsense.

Do Crips and Bloods members here really think they are part of one of those gangs in California? Or are they just using the name and claiming to belong to one group or another because it seems to give them “street cred” or makes them seem bigger than they really are?

Either way, it is this delusion that they belong to one group --hence they must wage war against the other group-- that led to this senseless killing.

Now that the suspects are in trouble with the law and facing possible jail time for murder, do they still feel it was worth the membership in a group that they really know nothing about?

What about for the victims? Was it worth associating with a group and ending up being targeted over a feud that they really have nothing to do with? A feud that started 60 years ago seven thousand miles away between people they don’t know over something they don’t care about?

It’s sad that many young people feel that they have to belong to a group to feel valued, especially particular groups that really don’t contribute to their personal development or to the betterment of society.