The these two stories had me shaking my head today in wonder. The first involved the
young child who was tortured and died before the age of two. At the funeral, a fight broke out -- at one point the brawl apparently came close to toppling the child's coffin.
Several people began to taunt Thomas [the chil'd father] because of his relationship to the foster parents. He clutched the funeral program in his fists, his eyes closed.
Glover [the child's mother] was assisted to the casket. Just as she reached it, the brawl began.
Who threw the first blow was unclear. Thomas was punched on the left side of his face. He was removed from the chapel and taken to a couch, the left side of his face severely swollen, a bloody gash beneath his left eye. Family surrounded the couch to protect him.
In the chapel, chairs were thrown aside and flower displays were knocked over. Several people grabbed the boy's casket to keep it from being flung down. Glover screamed.
As people cried out for calm, the fight spread to the funeral home lobby and into the street. The lectern with the visitor's book was knocked over. Someone reported seeing a gun, and stunned onlookers fled the building.
The
other story, same day, had to do with a mother who apparently felt that giving her son a gun to go out and finish an altercation that had occurred earlier was the correct thing to do.
[Milwaukee Police Chief] Flynn said he did not know what sparked Tuesday night's altercation.
"Listen, we're dealing with immature young men who do dumb things," he said. "The only problem for us now is they do dumb things with semiautomatic handguns."
And a mother who is not terribly grown up either.
