
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991                   TAG: 9102080716
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BYSTANDERS?/ MORE SHOTS IN ROANOKE

THE BULLET that grazed 4-year-old Moneka Small during a shootout this week in Roanoke was stray, but its impact is far from arbitrary.

Such shooting hits at the heart of the city, and the blow is not glancing. If it happens enough, a mounting toll of victims, innocent or otherwise, is a statistical certainty.

"You hear about innocent bystanders in New York being shot," said Moneka's 23-year-old mother. "I didn't think it would happen here."

But it did, and will again. Moneka will undergo plastic surgery to repair her head wound. Surface repairs won't halt the growing violence and gun-infestation that cast Roanoke in the dark likeness of diseased larger cities.

Before such cheapening of life, we can't afford to be a community of bystanders.

by CNB