Pictures of the Year International

Cle’Shai Perry, 18 was at the playground of her apartment building and caught in the crossfire of a barrage of bullets by multiple gunmen that cut her life short in Washington DC on September 5, 2023. Mikeya Ferguson, 19 also perished and her 15-year-old cousin was seriously injured. Her father has called for the National Guard to be deployed to stem the rash of violence in the city.

She loved pink and her family and friends showered her services in vivid hues of her favorite color, dressing in pink finery with elaborate decorations. She looked like a beautiful angel in the casket, wrapped in a sophisticated pink suit. Another young person lies with mortal stillness in a coffin. Their hopes and dreams stolen by escalating gun violence.

Too often it is young people doing the shooting - and doing the dying. In record numbers. Historically underserved communities and racial inequities contribute to a culture of gun violence with a disproportionate number of African Americans dead or incarcerated.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, to date the total number of teens killed in the U.S. is 1385 and 3,871 injured. Homicides in the nation’s capital surpassed 200 recently, up 35% from last year. As policy-makers debate gun control especially concerning assault weapons – the body count increases.

Funerals are filled with tears and echoes of mourning. But the repast is a time for passionate celebration of life. There has emerged a subculture for final farewells. Rituals include RIP T-shirts, lantern releases, and a life-size cutout of the departed where loved ones pose for selfies. Other bereaved mothers chat about their own losses. Seems everywhere there is someone who knows someone affected by gun violence.

Children in pink bowties mourned. Kids grow up seeing shell casing markers, bodies in caskets and bereaved mothers wailing at funerals. Sadly, soon there will be another body in a pool of blood, another vigil, another mother’s tears as she cries ‘My baby, my baby…’