Victim touched life of Kerry’s daughter

[Island Blue]

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=150330

Analicia Perry, struck down by a murderer’s bullet last weekend, lived only 20 years, but she was wise enough to know that friendships can cross seemingly impenetrable boundaries.

“She was an extraordinary girl,” said Vanessa Kerry, daughter of Sen. John F. Kerry, who met Perry in 2001 when she was a Harvard medical student and Perry a high schooler from Roxbury. Kerry was paired with the young, then expectant mother through a mentor program, but they quickly developed a friendship that would last for the rest of Perry’s life.

“She was curious, and smart, and engaged, and just funny,” Kerry told the Herald yesterday. “Obviously we come from different backgrounds, but that just didn’t matter with her. That is not what our friendship was about.”

Kerry will be among those at Mattapan’s Greater Love Tabernacle today to mourn Perry, who was shot and killed early Sunday morning while lighting a candle at a streetside memorial for her brother, who was slain at the very same spot four years earlier.


snip...

“It’s just beyond painful on so many levels. I’m stunned.”

Wow, this story is so tragic. I'm heartbroken for this young woman's family, especially her young son. Life is just so unfair sometime.

This story also goes to prove (once again) what incredible children John Kerry and Julia Thorne raised. Vanessa, Alex and the entire Kerry family never cease to amaze me.

[Mass]

1. Unfortunately, the same story happens every two or three days at least in

this Boston suburb and in other places. A couple of days ago, a young 17 year old kid who was going to school where my son goes (part of the METCO program) and was as far as people know a very good kid with no problem at all with the law got killed in Roxbury as well. He was only one of a very long series.

A few years ago, a small girl (she was probably 3 or 4 at the time) was shot on her porch and will be paralyzed all her life.

If this article can bring some of our pols to actually speak about this problem, it would be great, because this is absolutely dramatic.

I am happy that the fact that she knew Vanessa brings a little more exposure to the situation, but unfortunately, this is absolutely tragic and I would expect this happens in most big cities.

But I guess the conservatives will tell us that cutting the COPS program was a good way to save money.

[TayTay]

3. Crime goes down when we have the will to address it

as a problem. In times of neglect, when the victims are not valued then crime goes up. This is what is happening around the nation now, not just in Boston.

Deval Patrick said last fall that he was glad that the media had finally shown a spotlight on poverty in New Orleans. But, he noted, that the people on the roofs trying to garner attention had been abandoned long before Katrina. He was, and is, right.

Poverty, to the hard right wing, is a moral failing. These people, who call themselves Christians, believe that if people just weren't lazy and applied themselves, they too could go to Harvard and get nice jobs at Investment Banking Firms and make money. That they haven't done so is their own fault. What a harmful little fantasy. The nation can't afford it anymore.

[karynnj]

2. That is a heartbreaking story

I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a child, much less to lose the child to violence. And this family lost two children. Her poor little boy -

[wisteria]

4. tragic, simply tragic and so unnecessary.

And, Vanessa's connection with Analicia is heart warming.

[politicasista]

5. Very sad, tragic story

Condolences to the family and kudos to the Vanessa for being the classy woman she is.



R.I.P. Analicia:(