There are so many things in life that I don’t understand. But I do feel that I have for a 23-year-old, a better understanding than most my age about life, humanity and the function of society. However, there is one thing that I don’t understand, and that is how some feel that violence, hatred and even death are the answers to life’s difficulties.

Wednesday night, I stood outside of an apartment on Roberts Street and became entranced by the blue and white strobes of dozens of police cars. I felt like I was in a twilight zone being carried somewhere else and that place was not the Laurel I love. That place was a Laurel that I wish didn’t exist.

Shoot to kill seems to be the attitude of some people in Laurel these days. I don’t understand how someone could take another person’s life. It doesn’t matter how angry or upset you become, is violence the answer?

My answer to that is, NO! Hurting another person or even taking another person’s life is not the answer, and it seems that stabbing, shooting, and physical violence have become a popular attempt at quick solution to a problem. In the process, people are not only harming someone else’s life, they are taking away something from someone else – a brother, father, sister, aunt, friend, co-worker – member of society.

Society is not individually based. You have to be concerned about the people around you. Society cannot function peacefully with people only thinking of self. It doesn’t work that way, and unfortunately I have learned that the hard way.

It takes every individual person working together for a common cause. I think that cause is making this world a peaceful place. Yes, I know that we will never have complete peace, but can’t we at least have it in Laurel?

Can Laurel be a place where people work their differences out in a civilized manner. How does violence solve anything? It only causes more problems. Someone may have been angry and a life may have been taken and that person may think that their problems are now solved, but they have only created more problems for someone else – someone who just lost a loved one.

Wednesday night, I watched onlookers at a shooting death as they questioned what had just happened. Those people were not just adults, some of those people were children. What message is gun shots, yellow tape and a body bag sending to the children of Laurel?

They are watching, taking notice and I can bet anything that those children will never forget the day they saw a stretcher with a body bag being carried away from their community. Violence can be contagious and that is not a disease that the children of Laurel need to be exposed to.

Lacey Walters is a reporter for the Laurel Leader-Call.