On July 29, 14-year-old basketball star Semaj Miller was gunned down in South Los Angeles.
At six-foot-seven-inches tall, the Compton teenager was expected to go far with the L.A. City Wildcats, an association that helped launch the career of NBA player James Harden.
Now the community is mourning his loss.
"Semaj was such a talented kid who lost his life too soon," Rapper Percy “Master P” Miller, a coach and part-owner of the team, told Cheddar. "We have to stop this senseless killing, gun violence in our community. It's not the police. This is us killing us."
Miller lamented that gun violence is robbing the next generation of its talent, as well as those who could find success and come back and invest in their communities.
"This kid could have been the next LeBron James, could have been the next James Harden," he said. "We'll never get to know how talented this kid could have been."
Stepping outside of the rhetoric used in recent protests against police violence, the rapper said it was the responsibility of citizens to stop the violence in their own communities.
"I know we're out here protesting for Black Lives Matter, but my thing is, 'Okay, our kids matter,'" he said. "This is our future."
Miller didn't outline specific preventive measures but emphasized parenting and education.
"It's got to start in our community. We have to stand up for these kids. We have to protect them. We have to educate them," he said.
Ohio's governor gets the N2K award for creative vaccine thinking with a new lottery plan. Jill and Carlo also debate the latest developments in Israel, and what to make of rising inflation.
Mattio Communications CEO and founder Rosie Mattio talks about why Clubhouse has taken off among cannabis industry insiders.
The Florida city's appeal to outside companies isn't limited to the world of crypto, but to tech writ large.
The latest on the escalation of violence in Gaza and Israel, a turning point for the GOP today, gas shortages in the Southeast and sex-starved cicadas come out to play.
Attorneys general from across the U.S. have written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to drop company plans for a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13.
Jill is back with Carlo to try to break down what's going on with the sudden escalation of violence in Israel, the latest in the vaccination drive, inflation watch, and the return of the greatest couple of the 2000s.
The Food and Drug Administration said Monday the shot is safe and offers strong protection for younger teens based on testing of more than 2,000 U.S. volunteers.
The police officer who carried a 4-year-old girl to safety says the child barely cried on the way to the hospital after being hit shot in Times Square.
British authorities are seeking to recapture a young minke whale lost far from home in the Thames River after it escaped from rescuers overnight.
Friend of the pod Baker Machado joins Carlo to go over a busy weekend in news: the CDC makes a big change to its guidance on COVID transmission, the state of the GOP, Afghanistan unraveling, a possible labor shortage, and more.
