The sad reality of today is that there are a dozen or more stories across the country from just the last few days of African-American children dying from gun shots — and none were fired from the weapon of a police officer.

The reports out of city after city over the past few weeks about record numbers of deaths from gunshots are just almost mind-numbing.

Earlier today my colleague Brandon Morse covered the story in Atlanta about an 8 year-old girl shot and killed while in a car with her mother at the entrance to what used to be the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was killed by an Atlanta Police Officer three weeks ago.  The 8 year-old girl, Secoriea Turner, was killed when two armed men shot into the car after her mother refused to yield to their instructions when she attempted to turn around and leave the parking area.  They weren’t security or police — they were just two criminals with guns “dictating” to law abiding people in Atlanta what they must do.  Maybe for Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms this was finally “enough is enough.”  That’s what she said today.  But those are just words.  Maybe she’ll call Fulton County DA Paul Howard and make him understand how destructive to policing it is to prosecute a police officer for “felony murder” when he’s pursuing a fleeing felon who had just assaulted another officer with a weapon that Howard himself called a “deadly weapon” in a televised press conference only 2 weeks earlier.

But I want to call attention to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s press conference earlier today about the shooting death of 11 year old Davon McNeal on July 4th, while his mother was hosting a “nonviolence” cookout at the home she shared with the little boy.

Bowser said there is no “magic answer” or singular budgetary solution to stop gun violence. But she added that people should resist giving up on progress.  “That’s what we have to fight against: feeling powerless to stop gun violence,” Bowser said…..

After a weekend of violence, Bowser said the District is fighting both a pandemic and a health crisis related to gun violence. “This should not have happened and it cannot keep happening,” she said. “We can’t continue to lose our children to senseless gun violence.”

This is just idiocy beyond the pale.  Mayor Bowser — you are losing children to criminals, not “senseless gun violence.”

You have a DC Metropolitan Police Department with more than 3800 officers — almost 2300 of whom are African-American.

Yet two weeks ago when the DC Police Union pointed out that being forced to use just about every available officer to deal with street protesters, large sections of the District were left undermanned by the officers available.

But Mayor Bowser seemed more interested in having a “war of words” with Pres. Trump and the White House, and painting a tribute to “BLM” protesters on the street in front of Lafayette Park than she was in making sure DC neighborhoods were properly protected.  After Pres. Trump criticized her actions as Mayor in response to the protests around the White House, Bowser responded back on Twitter:

I see @AOC and I are living in his head, and apparently there’s a lot of empty room in there… just like tonight’s half empty Tulsa arena.

Pithy — but she’s the Mayor of a city and responsible for addressing the safety concerns of the residents of that city with a nearly 4000 member police force — the largest and best fund police force per capita anywhere in the country.  Pres. Trump is not.

But she thinks its a “health crisis.”  I wonder how many of the officers of the DC Police Department consider themselves to be health care workers?

And an 11 year old boy was gunned down in the front yard of his house at 9:20 at night on Fourth of July.

He needed protection from criminals that Mayor Bowser did not provide.

Maybe he can live in her head for a while.