Leave the Harveys Alone

Written in response to Michael Paul Williams' column in today's (12/7/11) Richmond Times Dispatch.

Mr. Williams,

If you ever want to know if you are on the wrong side of an issue, check and see what Said El Amin is saying and that should give you a pretty good idea. Very sad to see you jump in on the Harvey Bridge issue. It is a memorial erected in a park they loved by their friends and neighbors. Yes they are joined with Baskerville family by their common killers and yes every murder is a tragedy, but to split this town by race as El Amin seeks is just wrong.

Should a monument be raised for the Baskervilles? Maybe, if their friends and neighbors choose to do so. I might even contribute. Their murder was an equal tragedy, but with a twist. They were betrayed by their daughter and she by their friends.

This is not about race and to make it so cheapens their memory. I am very sorry to see you and your paper give so much publicity to a man who should be long forgotten in this town.

I could express this much more eloquently and I could given the time, but you are wrong on this and I hope you can see why. One monument can’t be all things to all people. This one is a touching memorial to a family brutally slain and erected by those who loved them and were affected by them. If they didn’t care enough to create this, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Instead you and others are using this act of love to further divide this city. It’s a real shame.

Paul Hammond

Five Years Ago, This Day

The Harvey's, Brian and Kathryn and their two children Stella and Ruby were killed in the Woodland Heights home. I didn't know them or of them till this day five years ago. Since I have learned they were minor celebrities with a large following of friends in Richmond and in Bryan's case at least, around the world. You might have known them, but I did not. Still, what happened five years ago today sucked the wind out of my lungs. They were only names and faces, but the picture so widely distributed now was a vision of domestic happiness. They were strangers to me, but I felt I knew them. There was something universal about about the warmth they shared which seemed a charm against the hard realities of life around them, and us. I immediately saw them as a symbol of hope and faith in themselves and the city they chose to live in. Murders like these are rare, rare, but devasting. People who knew them mourned personally. I mourned for strangers and the hope that left the city that day. I think a lot of people did.

Crimes are never committed against individuals solely. The affect, freinds, family, neighbors and in this case a whole city. Crimes this atrocious change how we look at each other, feel about strangers and in some cases make us question life decisions. I mourned them and a loss of some of my own faith that cities are rebuild-able. That we can get this thing done. There've been hundreds of murders since then and each one is a blow, but I can only think of one or two others that have come close to the impact these did. I hope none ever does. Now the Harvey's are memorialized in a stone and a bridge in Forest Hill park. Maybe people who see it will take hope from the love they shared and the impact they had. In some small way that will help rebuild the house that was torn down five years ago. It's going to take a lot of Harvey's and others to rebuild this community, but the best way to do it is to build it one house at a time with the kind of love they shared. I take hope because I have to. I see no other way.

This image is "borrowed" from the Richmond Times Dispatch which published front page remembrance of a crime and family we will never forget. Go read the article. It's worth your time.