Gang Violence Victim Speaks at Skeptics
Express-Times Article Covers Program

On April 14, Hashim Garrett presented a Society of Skeptics program, “A Victim of Gang Violence.” Shot six times at the age of 15 and now a 30-year-old Rutgers University student, Garrett spoke about educating young people on violence, firearms, gangs, substance abuse and street life. He coaches them in conflict resolution, kindness, forgiveness, the value of education and other positive, productive life skills.

Tony Nauroth of The Express-Times (Easton, PA) covered the Skeptics program; his article (below) appeared on the front page of the April 15 edition.

A full listing of the Skeptics programs is available here.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
By TONY NAUROTH
The Express-Times

BLAIRSTOWN TWP.
His so-called friends set him up on the unforgiving streets of Brooklyn, N.Y. He was 15, a smart kid, both parents college graduates.

But there lay Hashim Garrett, he said Tuesday, with "six holes in and six holes out" -- the victim of gang violence and of his own poor choices.

Garrett's mother was ready to move both of them to Atlanta the very next day because "she knew trouble was coming my way," the 34-year-old told a standing-room-only crowd at Tuesday's Society of Skeptics weekly lecture at Blair Academy.

Garrett, now a graduate of Rutgers University, hoisted himself on double canes to the speaker's table up front. A severed spine was the harvest of his young life sewn with bad decisions and worse company.

Professor Marty Miller, a Blair Academy history teacher, said earlier Tuesday during a phone interview he had heard about Garrett from a friend of a Blair parent.

He pointed out that the lecture series presents a wide range of issues. Previous installments touched on the difficulties and violence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I thought (Garrett) would be an interesting counterpoint to those issues," he said.

'I knew I was going to be shot'

Garrett, now of Orange, N.J., said he fell into a circle of friends who used the youngest members to commit the worst crimes, because they knew their punishment would not be as stiff when they got caught.

"It's like the Cub Scouts," he said. "I was arrested for armed robbery, that's a badge; I shot somebody, that's another badge. All I had to do was get a girl pregnant and leave her."

But Garrett already was pulling away from the gang. The leader would tell him to jump, but he would say, "No."

His shooting was a setup. Here's how he described it.

"I saw this kid right behind me," Garrett told a rapt audience. "I saw he had a submachine gun. I knew I was going to be shot. I felt something hard hit my back and my legs were walking funny. I was shot in my legs.

"Two feelings came over me. One, scared, and a sense of relief that evil was leaving me. I finally found a way to get out of this lifestyle.

"I was hospitalized for six months," Garrett continued. "The police told me they caught the kid who shot me. I was consumed with anger and revenge, so I told the police it wasn't him. I wanted to get well and go out and shoot the kid that did this to me."

A chance to help others

But somewhere along the line, he seized the opportunity to get out of the life to which he had fallen prey.

"I thought if this isn't going to change my life, nothing will," Garrett said.

He ended up in a program developed by Harvard University, in which he travels to schools to tell them his story.

And it's not just a story for intercity kids. Violence, he said, happens wherever anger, argument, alcohol or drugs and firearms come together in some combination.

Garrett told the crowd:

The majority of Americans who are killed are killed by somebody they know.

Every day 48 people in the United States are murdered.

Most murders are done by people of the same race as the victim.

He told the Blair students that they learn math, English and everything else in school.

"But nowhere are you taught about violence," he said. "Sometimes I feel sorry for people who have a lot because you can have a lot, but if you don't give, you don't have anything.

"It's my job to help you and you should help someone else."

Updated 4/15/09

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