There is no making sense of the death of Brexialee Torres-Ortiz, the 11-year-old Syracuse girl killed Monday evening in a drive-by shooting while on her way home from the corner store with a gallon of milk.
Words fail to convey the heartbreak of her family, her friends and classmates, her teachers, her mentors, her neighbors and her city.
The shooter deprived Brexi — an honor student, a leader among her peers, a beacon of positivity, a “hugger” — of the bright future the adults in her life saw ahead of her. What a loss for those who knew her and for the whole Syracuse community who never will.
Brexialee Torres-Ortiz, 11, was killed after getting a gallon of milk from the store for her family on Jan. 16, 2023. (Courtesy family)
For the moment, the focus is on finding the perpetrator. Someone knows who fired the gun at a 19-year-old man standing outside the store. Someone drove him to the hospital to treat his wounded leg, leaving the dying child. Someone needs to break the code of silence and turn in the shooter, writes Bishop H. Bernard Alex, a Syracuse pastor, in an emotional message to the community in our Opinion pages.
And what happens after the vigils are over and the candles burn out? “We must rise up and take responsibility and action,” Alex writes, arguing for parents to instill values in their children, to report them and their guns to the authorities, and calling on the community to reclaim neighborhoods from the people intent on committing violence.
There is another immediate need: to address the childhood trauma radiating outward from Oakwood Avenue.
There are Brexi’s neighbors at Central Village, the kids who attend Dr. King Elementary School within sight of where she was shot, and her classmates at Blodgett Middle School.
In their shock and grief, classmates plastered her locker with drawings of angels and broken hearts, and gut-wrenching messages like:
“You can rest now.”
“I wish I would’ve been here to protect you.”
“You are in a better place than me.”
These children are victims of violence, too.
Syracuse has been in this angry, helpless place too many times before. In April 2021, 11-month-old baby Dior Harris was killed in a drive-by shooting, making her the youngest victim of street violence in Syracuse history. In 2010, 20-month-old Rashaad Walker Jr. was killed in his car seat by gang-related gunfire. Guns injured 151 people in Syracuse last year, the highest number in 10 years, and the city has among the highest juvenile homicide arrest rates in the nation.
Each time an innocent child dies, there are calls to stop the violence. Then the momentum is lost.
“So many, over the next coming weeks will articulate what they think needs to be done. And then those same people disappear when cameras turn off and news reporters are gone,” said Lateef Johnson-Kinsey, head of Mayor Ben Walsh’s Office to Reduce Gun Violence.
Let us resolve as a community to make this time different.
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