Pubdate: Sat, 30 Jun 2001
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2001 PG Publishing
Contact:  http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: Tom Barnes

'I DON'T WANT ANYBODY ELSE TO DIE,' AUNT SHOUTS AT VIGIL

Standing only a few hundred feet from where her nephew was gunned 
down on the North Side Tuesday afternoon, Sandra Lynch cried out in 
grief at an outdoor church service last night.

"I don't want anybody else to die!" shouted Lynch, a Marshall Avenue 
resident and aunt of 20-year-old Carl Burley, one of two young men 
who died Tuesday in what police believe was a drug-related shooting.

Lynch, one of about 150 who gathered for a prayer vigil, admitted she 
had been a longtime drug user but said she has been clean for 10 
months. "I am a new creature in Christ," she said. "Through God, 
anything is possible.

"People who use drugs aren't bad people but they're doing bad 
things," sobbed Lynch, as she was hugged and comforted by friends at 
a service at Northside Institutional Church of God in Christ.

People held hands and prayed together in the street outside the 
church, just across California Avenue from where Burley and 
24-year-old Mark Hunter were killed in broad daylight. Heroin and a 
gun were found in their car. It was one of three fatal shootings in 
the city this week.

"We need to tell our young people -- 'You're more than just a bag of 
crack, you're more than just a needle, you can be what you want to be 
but you've got to stay focused,' " said Lola Thorpe, co-pastor and 
evangelist at the church.

She said some young people use or sell drugs "because no one's told 
them that there's a better way. I am tired of the blood of our young 
men running down the streets!"

She urged parents to be more involved with educating their children, 
quoting a Bible verse that calls on adults to "train up a child in 
the way he should go."

Citing the recent drug-related shootings, another church official, 
James Vaughn, said "a vicious and demonic attack has plagued our 
community in the last several days. The devil has contracted a hit on 
young black men. We are serving notice on the devil that we aren't 
taking it any more."

City Councilman Sala Udin said far too many young black men are 
dying, and said city government, police, churches, families and young 
people themselves need to work together to stop the violence.

City government must do more to provide jobs and opportunity, he 
said, but added, "We have to look internally. There are things nobody 
can do for us but ourselves. We have to get these guns out of the 
community and we have to get the message to young people that life is 
precious."

Udin also said blacks need to register and then turn out to vote in 
greater numbers than they have in the past for politicians to take 
their needs more seriously.

Community activist Kenneth Owens said churches can become a focal 
point for programs to expand literary and job training. He also 
called on government to focus more funding on programs for the 
neediest in society as a way to stop young people from turning to 
drugs and violence.

"You can't tear leaves off the tree of life and think that God ain't 
gonna get angry about it," he said.
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