"Blessed Are Those who Suffer”
The Passing of Alfredo Espinoza
Story by Marcos J. Reyes

Alfredo Ezpinoza was a 15-year-old kid from the block.  Same neighborhood I am from. On February 11 2010, two boys were attacked in on Kollmar Drive.  The night of the incident the cops ran a red tape that sealed off the streets. One of the boys was stabbed in the arm the other passed away from a wound to the stomach.

“He was a good friend,” a girl says to me.  She is part of a group of kids that go around collection money between Story and Capitol, each one carries a box with a picture of him. It's hard to put back together the story that led up to the event.  Candles are lit and a teddy bear is placed in the parking lot. A prayer is made as a crowd gathers around.

“He was a good kid, it wasn't meant for him. He tried to help his friend when he was being attacked,” says a community member who mourns the loss. No one knows who did it, on the side of a wall tagging covering up gang signs is buffed up with a cream colored paint. What people don't realize is the life that surrounds places like Kollmar, who are those that live there. Common folk who wake up in the morning and try to make ends, children that tend to their friends passing. These senseless acts are driven by prejudice of North and South.

“He was not a gang member, no one thought it would happened to him,” a friend tells me. In the world gang members walk with a sense of false pride, driven by misguided anger, and it's among their own people that they take it out on.

“As a child I had known kids grow into hard thugs, innocent at first, kids in the block make clans and brotherhoods, protect each other, it's a rule but sometimes those same kids are tainted by hatred,” A young man says.

A mother comments, “Kollmar drive has had many incidents like this one, their kids. They don't know how many innocent people passed away. How many others went to prison.”

Events like these are driven by prejudice and this should be broken. When one walks through the streets and sees the people standing outside the apartment where he lived, you feel the warmth of those who lived with him. No one knows who or why, but the prejudice should be broken within us, those who reflect on him. “Alfredo was a good friend,” the girl tells me. The truth is that Alfredo was a boy, someone's son, someone's brother, and like the rest of us, a human being. His life should be a lesson for us, those who live in families that extend out of our apartments, families that move into between streets gathering money for him.

Outside a boy whispers to himself, “Blessed are those who suffer for they shall be consoled.”