Writer says a great event went bad
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Danny Lawray
Published: April 1, 2008
What was once a great event for families in Prince William County has now turned into a disaster. The events that took place after Hoops Fest at Gar-Field High School on March 28 were pathetic.
Myself, along with several other school security personnel, and pretty much the entire eastern end of the PWC Police Department, were forced to quell a disturbance that endangered the safety of hundreds of folks who just wanted to see a great basketball event. Our efforts did not stop a teen from being stabbed several times and several others from being injured, including a police officer.
It took us nearly an hour from the end of the event to get people to stop the madness and leave. For this, I write this letter. I have been attending this event since the very beginning and each year the behavior of our young people has gotten worse. Several years ago, I was asked to introduce a family at this event and I delayed my speech due to the disrespect of many of those in attendance.
On Friday night, coach Andy Gray was on the microphone to introduce the family that this event was supporting and he could barely be heard. The family received minimal applause after a very brief comment, which also could not be heard.
The organizers need to seriously decide whether this event should continue. We don’t need to wait until someone loses their life to make this decision.
I commend the Prince William County police for all they did to restore order, and as a coach and employee of our school system, I apologize to all of the families who had to endure this madness.
We have a great school system that does not promote, condone or tolerate this behavior. I don’t know what is in the future for Hoops Fest, but I do know that participants and our community deserve
better.
DANNY LAWRAY
Dumfries
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( lawraydl ) on April 04, 2008 at 12:42 pm
phdee, You have made this into a racial situation when that’s not the case. I’m not sure what you want to hear but we are talking about teens engaging in foolish behavior after a sporting event. I know that in my initial write up, I made no reference to race, so why did that have to come in? In my first response to you, I indicated that ALL races were involved, and this is just a matter of self control, maybe home training, and whatever else. Let’s get off the race thing and move forward. I have no idea why the govt. does what they do and really don’t care because it doesn’t affect me anyway.
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Posted by ( phdee ) on April 03, 2008 at 9:51 am
I have to admit I made the sttement as a test. There are so many allegations on this website and in the community that the Hispanics are responsible feor everything immaginable, that I wanted to find the reaction if it were blacks who were being saingled out. The anti crowd has absolutely no FACTS, nor does the BOCS on the resolution. It’s funny that now themaccusation is that I have no facts - which I don’t. However, just a casual observation from newspaper pictures, news articles, names, neighborhoods, etc. does give suspicion that youthful blacks are engaging in a lot of petty activities. And I find that sad because I do fully understand the problems and history of blacks, believe me.
So I ask you: what is the anti crowds purpose of presenting their “facts’ regarding Hispanics?
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Posted by ( Sam B ) on April 02, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I wholeheartedly agree with you, lawraydl, that lacking self-discipline, over-aggressiveness, stupidity or whatever other conceptualizations one likes are found throughout all races. However, I’m in a generous mood today and would like to give phdee a chance to explain just how citing that “fact” was of any use.
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Posted by ( lawraydl ) on April 02, 2008 at 11:43 am
A comment like the one phdee made is not even worth responding to since that person does not have the factual data or documentation to back it up. Bottom line is people of all races were involved in this incident and if they had some self discipline, regardless of the color of their skin, it would not have happened.
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Posted by ( Sam B ) on April 02, 2008 at 9:51 am
I’m not going to call you a racist phdee (yet). You’ve cited this alleged statistic. What do you think we should do about it?
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Posted by ( phdee ) on April 02, 2008 at 12:03 am
Those who want to can call me racist, but the fact is that most of this teen violence and crime in PWC is being done by blacks. A breakdown of family values.
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