Authors Kelvin Sewell & Stephen Janis Present Book at Book Signing Yesterday

All seats were taken and there was standing room only at the White Marsh Barnes & Noble on Saturday. Kelvin Sewell, a retired Baltimore homicide detective of 22 years and Stephen Janis, a crime writer, spoke to the crowd about the book "Why Do We Kill?"

The assembled crowd was given a briefing on the book. Mentioned were the gangs/ gang mentality and how disassociated they are from what they do. How most do go to jail for about 10 years except for one gang member discussed in the book, who may never step foot again into society.




Authors Kelvin Sewell and Stephen Janis/
White Marsh Barnes & Noble on Saturday

 

Mr. Sewell was empathetic when speaking to the crowd about what it is like to visit someone's home and tell them their son will never walk through the door again. He envisioned, to the crowd and in the book, what it is like to look through the eyes of the parents.
This book is FACT even though the stories seem so hard to believe that human beings can act the way they sometimes do. What about the grandmother, raising her grandchild? What about the people with no money to move from the crime ridden streets even if they want to? And HOW, just exatly how, do you present yourself, collect your words to tell your own Mother bad news. Case File 8 stopped me dead in my reading tracks! It would be two days before I could finish the book.

This all happened during my personal reading time just  a couple of days before I was to meet Kelvin Sewell (who is now the Chief of Police in Pocomoke City) for the first time.  I had received a signed copy of his book from my husband for Christmas. Most times for Christmas I request several books but this year I bumped all the others for this one. 

When Chief Sewell asked me how I liked the book I stammered and have no idea what I said becasue I was thinking about his Mother. I was thinking about all those Mothers. And I was also thinking about the dead burned body, a body burned alive with leaves found in his lungs during an autopsy.

Not to be forgotten are the grandmothers raising grandchildren and I can still invision those grandmothers rocking and rocking on city porches waiting for their loved ones to come home, knowing there is no way to get out of a city of what seems to be full of nightmarish crimes. Grandmothers....raising grandchildren....because their own grown children can't. Those grown children are caught in the vicious cycle of crimes and drugs too.....and the grandmothers keep rocking.

And this is just but a small portion of the truth this book holds. No crime prevention group for teens can heal this.  The book is proof and if nothing else it raises so many questions.  It did for me.  Do we, because of some mindsets forgive the horrendous crimes committed?  Are these kinds of people to be pitied?  Am I glad that I tried so hard to be a 24/7 parent in the small town of Pocomoke?  YES!  Could THIS type of situation happen in small towns like Pocomoke City?  I don't know.  But it's something to think hard about.

Everyone should read "Why Do We Kill"  to get a clear and honest picture of what crime is in this beautiful city.

There is so much to this book.   Authors Kelvin Sewell and Stephen Janis have done an excellent job  writing about so much more than what has been discussed here and I'm anxiously waiting for a second book.

Thank you Kathy Schoolfield Ben for the photo.