Teen Allegedly Snatches Boy, 4, from Bed, Stabs to Death and Dumps Body
The often-used phrase “senseless crime” doesn’t begin to describe the evil committed against a 4-year-old boy who was ripped from his crib and brutally murdered.
It happened early Saturday morning in a Dallas residential neighborhood but authorities still aren’t sure what motivated the alleged killer, 18-year-old Darriynn Brown, to commit such a heinous crime, The Dallas Morning News reported.
According to police, surveillance footage from inside the home showed Brown lift Cash Gernon from his crib and carry him out at around 5 that morning.
Cash and his twin brother were staying at the home of their biological father’s girlfriend, Monica Sherrod, but the unnamed father had not made contact with them since he left in March.
The boys’ biological mother was unaware that the father had left the children with Sherrod and “has been conducting an extensive search for her sons for an extended amount of time,” according to a Dallas Police Department statement.
Sherrod contacted the police just before 11 a.m. Saturday to report him missing, according to the Morning News, and officials were able to identify Cash’s body through cellphone videos and photos of the boy. Sherrod also identified Brown, who was staying at his parents’ home nearby, as the suspect from the surveillance video.
Darriynn Brown, 18, arrested in kidnapping, murder of toddler in Dallas
Victim has been identified by local media as Cash Gernon
Child’s body found in woods
“Cash was sleeping when he was kidnapped,” mom says
Suspect was reportedly wearing ankle bracelet for prior charge pic.twitter.com/faQZbeXw8a
— Dan Lyman (@CitizenAnalyst) May 17, 2021
Earlier that morning, Antwainese Square came upon the child’s body lying in the street while she was out for a jog at around 7 a.m., according to an earlier report in The Dallas Morning News.
At first, Square mistook his small, shirtless, shoeless body for a dog until she saw Cash’s arms and legs.
“That’s when I noticed the baby had ants at the bottom of his feet,” Square said. “So I knew he was deceased then. It was heart-wrenching because this baby could have been no more than 5.”
Police said the boy had several wounds from “an edged weapon” and pegged his time of death around the hour Brown removed the sleeping child from his crib.
So many questions are left unanswered, such as how Brown got into the home, what connection he may have had to Cash or what his motive was for the alleged killing — although a woman identified as Brown’s mother said he was receiving mental health care at the time of the incident.
The suspect is being held on a $1.5 million bail on charges of kidnapping and burglary, but charges could be added pending the results of forensic testing, The Associated Press reported.
At the time of the alleged crime, Brown was already facing misdemeanor charges for evading arrest stemming from an April 27 case, and some outlets had incorrectly reported that he was wearing an ankle bracelet monitor at the time.
Some on social media are outraged that this crime is not receiving more attention and have speculated there would be riots and calls for blood if the races of the suspect and victim were reversed — but isn’t the point that this crime is horrible no matter what?
“Dallas 4-year-old Cash Gernon brutally murdered by this man,” Twitter user CensoredConservative captioned a tweet with side-by-side photos of Cash and Brown.
“I KNEW it when they would not release the race of the child at first! And sure enough! Where’s the rage people? ANOTHER white child murdered by a black man,” the tweet continued, echoing the sentiment of some other users equally outraged. “Where are the riots?”
Dallas 4-year-old Cash Gernon brutally murdered by this man.
I KNEW it when they would not release the race of the child at first! And sure enough!
Where’s the rage people? ANOTHER white child murdered by a black man.
Where are the riots?https://t.co/PEqLWqcIbn
— CensoredConservative?? (@GinnyGinny_1) May 18, 2021
This reaction to every crime where there is a racial disparity is exactly what’s wrong with the left today, and it’s a problem that will soon poison the right if we’re not careful.
This misplaced outrage is counterproductive regardless of the race of the victim or perpetrator because it attempts to boil these evil, savage acts of malice down to a talking point.
Cash was a child with a complicated home life who was killed before he had much of a chance to live.
Brown’s young life will now expectedly be wasted behind bars, albeit as a well-deserved, just punishment for the crime he committed.
This was a tragedy in every way, and there is no benefit to racial outrage and division even if it turns out to be Brown’s motivation, though right now there’s zero evidence race was even relevant.
Instead, we must recognize that violence is an evil that originates in the heart and is universal to the human experience that cuts across all races.
Rather than point fingers or unnecessarily fan the flames of racial strife, the proper response to this crime is sorrow for the victim and justice for the suspect — and no motive for the crime makes it any better or worse.
As English poet John Donne eloquently expressed in his poem “No Man is an Island,” the tragedy of this death is that “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
We all need to stop getting mired in squabbles about racial injustice and focus instead on what’s happening to society and to our diminishing humanity — and we’ll never get to the heart of these problems as long as we’re still arguing over the superficial.
Let’s mourn for Cash and punish Brown, but let’s not lower ourselves to the race-baiting hysteria and vengefulness we despise from the left.
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