Justice for Wynter
Many people in the Detroit area woke up at the start of the holiday week with an Amber Alert on our phones. We were advised that a man had attacked a woman and kidnapped her two-year-old child. Over the next three days, police from Lansing to Detroit launched a coordinated effort to find the man and child. Three days later the body of Wynter Cole Smith was found in an alley on the east side of Detroit. The suspect, Rashad Trice, was arrested after crashing a car during a police chase.
In response to this tragedy many Detroiters, especially those living near the site where Wynter’s body was found gathered to express their grief at the loss of a child to violence. More than 100 people gathered to offer messages of support to the child’s family and to reflect on what is happening in our community.
For some, this tragedy has led to calls for increasing the mechanisms of state punishment. Mr. Trice has a history of violent assaults and was on probation from one in 2021. Some of Wynter’s relatives are calling for tougher legislation so that suspects convicted of violent crimes remain in prison.
Such a response is understandable. But the dominant call from community members was a very simple message, “We can do better. We have got to do better.”
It will be easy for people to demonize Mr. Trice. At age 26, he already has a long and troubled history of violence. He now faces multiple charges including homicide, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
Yet, some people are beginning to ask the hard questions of what has happened along the way to this moment? How is it possible that a troubled young man got to this point? How is it possible that his efforts at loving relationships have become so corroded and filled with violence? Where was the guidance, support, care, and love that should have long ago encouraged a different way of being for this young man and the people he cared about?
All the technologies of our police departments, all the maximized police budgets, all the efforts to increase surveillance in our communities did not stop what happened to Wynter. Nor did they intervene a decade ago when Mr. Trice first began to have trouble. They are only able to deal with the tragic end results of lives left unsupported, allowed to drift to violence as the only way to deal with pain, frustration, and fear.
Mr. Trice will no doubt move through the criminal justice system and face a future in prison. The press is already telling us what a horrible, unredeemable person he is. But Mr. Trice reflects all of us. He did not begin life as a murderer. He too faced choices along the way. But so have we as a community. We have backed away from so much that supports the growth and development of our young people. We have withdrawn so many of the things that help people grow in positive, thoughtful ways.
From the cutting of parks, education, transportation, libraries, museums, health, and counseling services we have been letting our children and families down. It should be no surprise that as young adults they handle conflict and anger with violence.
We have a lot more to do, a lot more to repair and build, if we want a world where all children grow up to be healthy, whole, and loving adults. Justice for Wynter and for al ofl our children requires a lot more than punishment.