After four murders in 8 days, Chester Mayor Wendell Butler has declared a State of Emergency in the city. And it's about damn time.

Butler is the beleaguered soul of what's good and right in Chester, a spokesman for the many hard-working, law-abiding folks who live in this tired town. But when it comes to those who get to define the character of a place, that power goes to a unhealthy minority of violent young men; uneducated, surly and impetuous. The have grown up in subculture that by virtue of it's meanness and short-sighted view of life has managed to chase better people away.

Many good people have stayed in the city because they have refused to be chased out. Other decent souls have stayed because they don't have the wherewithal to move out. Kids who might have turned out fine elsewhere get corrupted by the streets. Violence and cruelty is visited on them from an early age and they see how things are. They become hard and mean themselves and the cycle of violence spins on.

Terrence Webster Jr. never had the time or the chance to get mean. Neither did he have the chance to prove that he could be one of the kids who rise above such a culture to get an education, go to work and become one of the good guys.

He was two when it he died. Taken by aimless gunfire and the bad luck to be where he was; at home in the city of Chester.