C LARA “Ma” Saunders started crying every day – literally – in January 1996.
Her tears stopped when she died Dec. 12, 1997, at age 66.
The doctors said a heart condition killed her, but Ma Saunders was really a victim of gun violence.
Her death was excruciatingly slow – brought on over nine years by the gunshot deaths of five of her grandchildren in the streets of Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
“She would be talking to me about something, and all of a sudden she would start crying,” her 21-year-old granddaughter, Shauntrice Saunders, said sadly. “She would cry and say she misses her grandchildren.”
All her family knows is that Ma Saunders – a city social worker for 20 years – was healthy, vibrant, outgoing and would head to Atlantic City any chance she had to gamble.
But once Ma Saunders’ grandchildren started dying, so did she.
*The first was Raleak Davis, 20, in 1987.
*His brother Andrew, 22, was gunned down in November 1991.
*A third brother, Frankie, 18, was shot to death in July 1993.
*The crushing blow occurred in January 1996. That’s when she lost Glennis Saunders, 15, and Dwayne Saunders, 21, cousins who were murdered in the same Throop Avenue building Ma lived in.
Whether they were good boys or bad boys is irrelevant because they were Ma Saunders’ boys.
Each death weakened her heart.
“I honestly believe the death of her grandchildren accelerated her death,” said her daughter, Frances Davis, 48, who was left childless when her three boys were gunned down.
“It was horrendous.”
Today, Ma Saunders probably has a front-row seat in Room 651 of the Brooklyn federal courthouse.
That’s where a lawsuit against gun manufacturers filed by women who have lost children and husbands is being heard.
The suit charges that the gun manufacturers should be held liable for negligently distributing their products that subsequently end up in the black market and on the streets of New York City.
“I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I know a product I sell kills countless children,” said Freddie Hamilton, 55, the lead plaintiff in the trial. Her son, Njuzi, 17, was shot and killed in Brooklyn in 1993.
Hamilton and her co-plaintiffs have the right idea.
I’ve interviewed many crying mothers and fathers who have lost children to guns. It stinks. It makes me go home and hug my kids.
Everyone in this city should applaud Hamilton’s efforts because she is fighting for the safety of all of our children.
While going after gun makers is a start, it’s not a cure.
Let’s just say they conducted unsavory business practices to make money. But the gun makers weren’t there when little boy A shot little boy B.
This landmark suit will make gun manufacturers and the public more aware of the gun infestation in our city streets.
The plaintiffs don’t want money. They want gun makers and America to wake up. They want to make it damn hard for kids to get guns.
If anyone disagrees, they should look at the sad demise of Ma Saunders.
After January 1996, she refused to leave her fifth-floor apartment for fear of getting shot.
She had a heart attack six months after her first grandchild died in 1987. She suffered from bouts of depression. She underwent heart surgery, and had an infected leg amputated after the 1996 murders.
After that, the family’s Sunday gatherings in Ma’s apartment dwindled to nothing. When she lost Dwayne and Glennis, she was finished.
“If you think it’s hard going to a funeral and looking at one coffin, try looking at two,” her daughter, Denise Saunders, 37, said as tears welled in her eyes.
Ma was never at peace – even in death.