American Tragedy: Shooting Victim W

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Subject: American Tragedy: Shooting Victim Was Living His Parents' Dreams

It is a tragedy. I wish I had known Gary Wong. Such a sad senseless
tragedy for him and his family that should never have happened. After
all he had lived and learned, daner and death can strike at any moment.
They could have been friends, instead he was killed. I've been on back
streets, in ghettos and gutters of NYC. With a gun to the head. On the
wrong side of the street. This was totally uncool. I feel a great spirit
has been taken from human life, and from his family. Gary Wong could
have given his killer everything but he took his life instead. When will
people ever learn that the only end to violence is the end to violence.
And understanding. Two brothers clash, and now one is dead. In America,
the land of the free, the brave, and the living dead...

ds* 

> Shooting Victim Was Living His Parents' Dreams
> 
> By EDWARD WONG
> 
> [W] hen Gary Wong's parents fled Burma in 1979, they wanted to give
>     their future children a life away from the poverty and repression
> of that nation's military government. They bribed officials. They
> signed a paper vowing never to return.
> 
> By all accounts, Mr. Wong, 18, the eldest of three children, led
> exactly the kind of life his parents hoped he would. It was a life
> spent on basketball courts and Internet Web sites, in college
> classrooms and at a Manhattan office job. It was, in short, the life
> of a Brooklyn-born teenager, one that made his parents never regret
> boarding the plane out of the tropics.
> 
> What no one could predict was the brutal way that that life would end.
> 
> On Sunday night, as Mr. Wong was walking home from a friend's house, a
> gunman demanded his wallet, the police said. The suspect, Lamar Means,
> then fatally shot Mr. Wong in the chest and arm before he was shot and
> wounded by an off-duty plainclothes officer who had witnessed the
> killing, police officials said. (Mr. Means, 18, of Coney Island, who
> was charged with murder, robbery and illegal possession of a
> .32-caliber revolver, was in stable condition yesterday at Lutheran
> Medical Center, the police said.)
> 
> It all happened a few doors down from the victim's home in Coney
> Island, close enough for his father to hear what he thought were
> firecrackers bursting.
> 
> The neighborhood, lined with town houses, is home to many immigrant
> families, and has always been relatively safe, family members said.
> 
> "I feel shock," said Johnny Wong, the victim's father, his voice
> quavering. "You know, they took my heart away."
> 
> Meme Wong, the mother, was too overcome with tears to talk.
> 
> Friends and family members described Gary Wong, a freshman at Hunter
> College, as a teenager who was going places, calling him "very smart,"
> "bright," "a genius." He had been fascinated by computers since he was
> 5, when his parents bought him his first I.B.M. He read medical books.
> He had gone to Bronx High School of Science for a year, then returned
> to his local school because the trip took too long.
> 
> From the moment he set foot in Hunter College last fall, he said he
> wanted to be a doctor. "I told him you need a lot of energy, a lot of
> hard work," said Jason Wong, his uncle. "He said, 'O.K., I can do it.'
> "
> 
> Gary Wong was as devoted to his family as he was to his studies,
> especially when spending time with Linda Wong, 17, his sister. They
> played handball when he was not shooting basketballs at the local
> park. The two went to movies together. Mr. Wong loved action films,
> especially the "Star Wars" series. She said he had confided in her
> about the most painful moments of his adolescence: the girlfriend who
> broke his heart, the friends he sometimes argued with.
> 
> The last time she saw him, they were eating pizza together at home.
> "We could go anywhere together," Ms. Wong said. "Sometimes we just
> wanted to see each other for a minute, then we would go our separate
> ways."
> 
> Those who knew Mr. Wong said he loved to talk. He talked about his
> classes. He talked about the latest computer game. He talked with his
> neighborhood friends and cousins, and when he could not talk to them
> in person, he sent them e-mail messages.
> 
> In December 1998, Mr. Wong took a part-time job making mass mailing
> labels for Philip Holzer & Associates, a Manhattan printing company.
> His mother worked as an accountant in the same building. His
> supervisor, Noreen Wong (no relation), has known his parents since
> 1982, when they took job training classes together.
> 
> Noreen Wong also came from Burma, now called Myanmar, and she had
> attended birthday parties for Mr. Wong since he was an infant. "They
> liked this country," she said, crying. "This was the free country, and
> this was the future for the family."
> 
> Last Friday night, Mr. Wong and his supervisor caught the D train
> together back into Brooklyn. He cheerily told her about his plans to
> see some of his friends that weekend, Ms. Wong recalled.
> 
> Before she got off at her stop, he made her two promises: that he
> would show up early Monday to review projects, and that he would help
> repair her home computer.
> 
> She saw him smile as the subway doors closed. Then the train took him
> into the darkness and out of her life, leaving those promises and all
> the others unfulfilled.
> 
>  [Image]