Perspective: Children born poor have little margin for mistakes or bad decisions, regardless of race

Alfred King was lying in the parking lot of a small apartment building, mortally wounded when police in Alexandria, Louisiana, got to the intersection of 12th and Magnolia streets shortly before 1:30 a.m., Jan. 20.

The 34-year-old was the first fatal shooting of 2023 in the small city where I grew up--and a large portion of my family lives.

Alfred's death was similar to some I have covered since my first in 1985, a 38-year period when hundreds of thousands of people of all races and ethnicities have died violently in the U.S.

I know the details of too many of those incidents, from school shootings to a drug hit in a phone booth. I've heard the scream of a mom coming home from work and seeing her son in the street, encircled by yellow police tape. I've watched more than one mother gently touch the face of her teenage son and then close the lid on the casket.

Some stories are burned into memory, like the Washington, D.C., teenager who asked his mom to send him out of the region to escape the violence. He spent years away only to come home one weekend to plan his high school graduation party and be randomly stabbed to death by a stranger.

While I know some of those back stories, Alfred's is the one I can personally trace from a decision made years ago by adults to gunshots near the end of a rundown street.

Alfred is my first cousin. When he was 13, my wife and I tried to get legal custody of him after his mom was murdered, but his guardian said no.