It saddens me to report that someone I graduated from high school with and whom also I would consider a good friend has passed away after injuries sustained from an unprovoked gang attack.
Christopher Kernich, or CK as he was known by his fellow classmates, was an all around 1st class man. He was a beast on the football field as he led the Dayton, Ohio area in Yards Receiving @ 1240, Yards Per Catch @ 23.9 and Touchdowns with 21 during his senior season, 2004. If not for issues off the field, mainly grades, he would've been playing College Football for a BCS school, and perhaps had a shot at playing on Sunday's in the National Football League. The best Wide Receiver in high school I ever seen, and that's saying a lot considering I also got to watch Greg Orton from nearby Wayne High School, who was fighting for a roster spot with the Bengals.
After high school, CK enrolled @ Kent State University where he was studying pre-business management and only months away from getting his degree. Newspapers from the Dayton Daily News and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, have since reported on Kernich's passing, which also includes details on the incident that ultimately led to this tragic conclusion.
A few hours ago, as I type this, there was a candlelight vigil held @ Fairborn High School. The pictures at the top of the post are ones I personally took, even though it had to be shrunk from its original post size to fit. So if 1 picture looks bigger than the other, well that's me and my amateurish photo shopping skills for ya right there.
In the immediate hours after his passing, he was one of the top 25 searches on Google and is still a top 100 hourly search @ Google as of 04:00 hours. Needless to say, the gang claiming responsibility for the attack on Chris has a different viewpoint on the whole matter. The Akron Black Foot Soldiers will now forever be remembered by those affected by Chris' sudden and shocking death.
He always wanted to make it big, but this was not what any of us who were around him at any time, had in mind. Chris was almost always the life of the party, whether it be nights out at Fricker's, where I had the privilege of being there with him on occasion when he would return home from KSU, and anything else you could imagine. The girls loved him and the guys were cool with him. Yeah, he would give me heck from time to time, but it was all in love and brotherhood. Proof that opposites can get along.
Chris, you will be missed by everyone good and decent in your time on this Earth, which was ended way too soon. And hopefully, those behind his murder will be punished to the maximum, whatever the maximum may be in this particular case. Anything less than the maximum would be a failure by the justice system of the United States of America, where criminals get off easier than We The People for the same crimes, especially if they have a lot of $, or the right connections in the system. I am confident though, that those who were directly involved will get the maximum sentence allowable by law regarding this particular case. But no matter what happens, CK won't be around to see it. His justice won't be served. Because his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was robbed unjustly from him. All because he was a suspected N-word thinker. That, by definition, is a thought crime.
I will end the piece by saying this; when someone plays the race card, as the Blackfoot Soldiers have, they are the ones promoting and injecting racism into the conversation. I also do find it kind of ironic that they hate the white man, as they say they do, yet it was President Abraham Lincoln, a white man, who helped to free blacks, or at least get the ball rolling on the matter, from their slave owners with the Emancipation Proclamation. I don't know what leads them to do what they do and how they think, but if they knew their history, this likely never would've happened, and Chris would still be alive.
RIP #80
Until Next Time...
Avenge him, you coward.
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