At Dallas Complex Where 3 Kids Have Been Shot to Death in a Few Weeks, the Death, Too, of Innocence

The first thing you see when you walk into the Roseland Community Center off Munger Avenue are the flowers and the teddy bear and the candles and the sign taped to the brick column. "Long live Greg," it says in cursive. "Long live Zacc." Greg is Gregory Horton III. Zacc is Zacchaeus Banks. Both were 17 years old when they were shot to death — right here, on this very spot — during a drive-by on June 30.There is a handwritten note, too, framed. Some of it is an excerpt from the poem "If Tears Could Build A Stairway" often etched into memorials or read at funerals: "No farewell words were spoken, no time to say goodbye." But someone has taken liberty with the words of an unknown poet. There is, at the end, this offer of advice: "Always tell them *I love you* before they walk out the door."The note is signed "Roseland Angels."Here, in this same Dallas Housing Authority complex in the shadow of Cityplace, 9-year-old Brandoniya Bennett was shot to death Wednesday before the sun had gone down. Police suspect a gang member fired into her apartment unit believing it belonged to a rival who wouldn't answer the door. Her killer remains at large; so, too, the shooters behind the June 30 slayings.  Continue reading...