JAVITS FRIMPONG: JUSTICE FOR ONE CHILD, LESSONS FOR EVERY IMMIGRANT FAMILY
My son turned five a week ago.
I became his father at 51, after fifteen years of waiting.
And every day, as I watch him grow, I am reminded that the joy of having a child cannot be separated from the responsibility of raising that child.
Then came the heartbreaking news of Javits Frimpong.
Fifteen years old.
A Ghanaian child who had joined his father in the United States about a year ago.
Shot and killed on his way to school in the Bronx, New York.
His father, Thomas Frimpong, had brought him to America with hopes for his future.
Now, that father is mourning his son.
As a father, I struggle to imagine his pain.
As an African immigrant raising a child in America, I cannot read this story without asking questions.
And as someone who has spent nearly three decades working in child safeguarding, I cannot stop at condemnation.
I want justice for Javits.
I also want us to learn something that may help another family.
Let me be clear.
I know nothing about the private decisions Javits’s parents made in raising him.
I have no basis for judging them.
The responsibility for his killing belongs to those who committed it.
But the responsibility to learn from tragedy belongs to all of us.
For nearly three decades, I have maintained that enlightenment is superior to enforcement.
Enforcement responds when boundaries have been violated.
Safeguarding asks what we can do before harm occurs.
Both matter.
But when a child is lost, enforcement alone cannot return that child to his parents.
This brings me to a question I believe African immigrant families must take seriously:
How do we prepare our children to live safely in a country whose systems, cultures and communities may be unfamiliar to us?
When relocating or exploring opportunities in another country as part of our desire to influence the world, we research employment opportunities.
We consider accommodation.
We examine schools and their academic performance.
We calculate the cost of living.
But do we pay sufficient attention to the safety of the communities in which our children will live?
Do we investigate neighbourhood crime patterns?
Do we understand the school’s approach to bullying, threats and violence?
Do we assess the routes our children take to school?
Do we establish relationships with teachers and school administrators?
Do our children know whom to approach when they feel unsafe?
And, perhaps most importantly:
Have we built the kind of relationship in which our children can tell us what is happening to them without fear?
These are questions I ask myself as a father.
They are not questions directed at Javits’s parents.
There is another dimension.
Javits reportedly arrived in America as a teenager.
Children who relocate during adolescence bring with them established experiences, identities and expectations.
They must then navigate unfamiliar environments, peer relationships and social expectations.
Relocation is not merely a change of address. It can be a significant transition in a child’s life.
How deliberately do we prepare our children for that transition?
How closely do we accompany them through it?
Javits’s father has spoken publicly about his son’s reported experiences of bullying.
Whether those experiences were connected to his killing remains unestablished.
But the allegation raises a safeguarding question:
When a child reports bullying, what happens beyond punishment?
Is the child’s safety assessed?
Is there follow-up?
Are parents kept informed?
Is the child supported?
Suspension may address misconduct. It does not automatically resolve the underlying safety concerns.
I ask these questions because I believe safeguarding must go beyond reacting to incidents.
I am not suggesting that asking these questions guarantees safety.
It does not.
No parent controls every danger.
But uncertainty cannot become an excuse for abandoning intentional parenting.
We cannot control everything that happens to our children. We can take responsibility for what we reasonably can.
Today, my heart is with Thomas Frimpong, Javits’s mother and everyone mourning this precious child.
May God comfort them.
May the investigation establish the truth.
May justice be done.
And may Javits’s death challenge families, schools and communities to examine what more can be done to safeguard children.
My son is five.
Javits was fifteen.
Between those ages lie ten years of growth, discovery, relationships and parental responsibility.
I pray that I will use those years wisely.
Justice for Javits.
Safeguarding lessons for all of us.
Because every child deserves more than our outrage after tragedy.
Every child deserves our attention before tragedy.
Enlightenment is Superior to Enforcement®
#50PlusDad
Follower of Christ. Husband. Father.
Egalitarian. Goodwill Investor. Change Agent. Rebel with a Cause. Attorney. Author. Thriver. Culture-Led Family Strengthening and Child Safeguarding Pioneer, Innovator and Practitioner. Value-Based Parenting Ideologue. Three Decades in the Saddle.