When a mass shooting takes place, shooters are labelled differently by the media, depending on their race. (Image: THE STRANGER)

By Moses Jeuronlon

Shooting is something that happens frequently in the United States of America, and it is not a pleasant thing. People die from the shootings. Some lose their families and loved ones; some get critically injured and are disabled for life.

In all the shootings, there is something that many people fail to notice and that is the public reaction to the race of the shooter.

Shootouts happen for many different reasons. Sometimes it happens when a teenager shoots up his school or someone attacks an organization, or there is a fight between gangs or even a shootout between gang members and the police.

When a white American citizen is the suspect of the shooting, the media usually says the person was “mentally unstable”, but when the suspect happens to be from the Middle East, the media will say it was an act of terrorism. According to Vanshkumar Patel, a senior at Patterson High School, “It’s not fair to the majority of middle eastern people to be call terrorists because of one person’s action.”

However, society can’t help but always suspect that gun violence is an act of terrorism. And it is understandable based on past experience, “because of the events that happened on 9/11”, said Patel.

People remember things, especially the bad ones, so when they see the suspect is Middle Eastern, they can’t help but be paranoid and start rumors. And when everybody hears the rumors, panic will be everywhere.

There are also racist assumptions made when a shooter is black or hispanic. Instead of being seen as a misguided person who needs help, people assume that the shooter has always been a violent thug or criminal.

Gun violence is tragic no matter who pulled the trigger. Next time we hear about a shooting, instead of asking about the race of the shooter, we should instead be asking what we can do to prevent more gun violence in the future.

A player from Patterson pushing the ball going to score on Lewis (photo by Moses Jeuronlon)

By Moses Jeuronlon

The Patterson High School varsity boys soccer team devastated Reginald F. Lewis in a shut-out game with a score of 8 to 0 on Oct. 1st, 2018

They played on Patterson’s home field. Goals were being scored every five minutes. Both coaches kept giving instructions and changing team plays. The game was played on a quality vs. quantity basis. Patterson had more players than Lewis, but the Lewis had players who were very good at ball control.

Coach Dan Callahan said, “No-one played well in the game and most credit should go to Lewis the goalkeeper for saving all the balls that should’ve been scored.”

Patterson’s team really had a lot of players and they should have scored a lot of goals. But, they missed goals that should have been scored and lost balls that should have been theirs. Also Patterson had a really good defense and kept the ball away from their goal.

The field didn’t have a lot of spectators, unlike how it usually is when there’s a football game or basketball game. One thing that both teams had a problem with was the lack of communication between team members on the field. When the ball is in the air coming down for either side to receive it, multiple people can go there for it and they can mostly lose the ball to the other team because they didn’t talk to each other on who should get the ball.

The game lasted for 90 minutes. It started at 3:45 and ended at 5:15. Patterson was well-organized and was ready with their best 11 players ready to go on the field. When the coach was asked how he chooses his starting players he said, “I choose guys who will help the team win and I look to see who showed up most at practices.”

It was a very interesting game to see the fight between quality and quantity.