We're in an awful way: Another death at a Masonic hall party

[Sung to the tune of Cat Steven's Another Saturday Night]

Another Saturday night
At the Masonic party
Two more wounded, another dead.
How I wish that someone would stop this
We're in an awful way.

Sixteen-year old Shaquil Sanders (also reported as Shaquil May) was stabbed to death and two other men wounded by gunfire outside a party at a Masonic hall in Brooklyn, New York early Saturday morning. The party was sponsored by a church, and billed as a "drug and alcohol-free" event.

Burning Taper reported last weekend violence broke out at a private party held at a Masonic lodge in Maryland, with four people seriously wounded by bullets.

So far in 2007, by my count, the boxscore for violence at parties in U.S. Masonic halls:

• Wounded: 8
• Killed: 2

This repeated violence at parties held in Masonic lodges further drives home the point that "black youth need guidance" by responsible adults in their neighborhoods that M. W. Bro. Milton F. Fitch, Grand Master of Prince Hall Masons in North Carolina, made during the Masonic African-American Male Summit last week in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

It also again speaks to the fact that Masonic lodges should closely monitor who rents out their halls. Though some of these news stories says that the party was sponsored by a local church, the New York Times article quotes Charles Brown, age 72, who was in charge of renting the hall (and whom we can assume is a Freemason), as saying he wasn't sure who sponsored the party, as he could not remember the names of the two people he had given permission to use the hall.

Links:
New York Times
1010 Radio (New York)
New York Post
NY1, New York City's 24-hour news channel

Image: Shaquil Sanders (or Shaquil May), stabbed to death at 16 in a Masonic hall parking lot

Note: My apologies for butchering Cat Steven's song. And yes, I'm aware this latest violence occured in the early hours of Saturday morning, not Saturday night. Poetic license, you know.

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