Remembering Jerrell Jackson
Man was part of tragic pattern
No public outrage in Central City death
The Times-Picayune
Friday, January 11, 2008
By Katy Reckdahl
Jerrell Jackson measured 5 feet, 6 inches, and was a youngster everyone liked to be around.
“He was a very kind-hearted, friendly, loving person,” said his mother, Laverne Thompson, 46, a petite woman who stands about as tall as Jackson, her youngest son.
Jackson, 21, was killed on June 19 — Father’s Day — in Central City, exactly one year after five young men were shot and killed in the same neighborhood in a case that made national headlines. Police said they have no leads in Jackson’s killing and noted that he had been hit by bullets in three other incidents that year.
In some ways, Jackson’s unheralded death is typical of New Orleans murders, which overwhelmingly affect young African-American men and often have little chance of being solved.
No one launched a protest march over Jackson. No one shook a fist at a crime march for most of the people who died on New Orleans’ streets. But every murder victim leaves behind suffering family and friends, who ache each time they see news coverage of yet another killing.
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