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Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.

Shanna Flowers

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Sometimes, we need the tragedy of death to wake us up.

I never had the pleasure of knowing George Rogers, the 89-year-old Roanoker who was a local institution. He was found dead in his Northwest home last week.

But Rogers was someone I should have known. That was evident from the outpouring of palpable shock, grief and reverence shown him in death.

There's an incorrect presumption that violence is an arm's-length scourge. Who cares? It's just young black men killing other young black men, right?

Wrong. While violence is ravaging some black communities, anyone is a potential victim regardless of race, age or gender.

And when violence spills into our comfort zone, when it touches our contemporaries, people we admire and respect, we take notice.

That's what Rogers' untimely death did for Roanoke.

After Clovis Rogers didn't hear from her ex-husband for several days, she found him lying dead, with a head trauma. Police charged a young man with grand larceny after he reportedly drove past the crime scene in Rogers' car as detectives spoke with family members.

If that young man doesn't know something, he knows people who do. No snitching? Honor among criminals? Puh-lease.

As heart-wrenching as it is, Rogers' death should compel us as a community to take a long, hard look in the mirror. We can turn the other way, or we can take seriously the ravages of violence moving stealthily among us. A first step to reverse it is to get engaged early in young lives on the wrong trajectory.

Such action is not without precedent.

A few years ago, several women across the city died at the hands of men who were supposed to love them.

But one of them, the 2005 shooting death of registered nurse Sabrina Reed, pushed Roanokers to their breaking point. Her death at the hands of an estranged husband jolted the community.

The initiative prompted the city to hire a domestic violence specialist, and Total Action Against Poverty joined the city six months ago to open a child drop-off center for abuse victims.

Just as Reed's death quickened Roanokers to action, Rogers' death should do the same. Rogers used his generosity and good will to touch lives in his work with the railroad and U.S. Postal Service and as a volunteer.

When you live as long and full a life as Rogers, whenever your time comes, you've earned the right to die peacefully surrounded by loved ones.

Not alone, at the hands of merciless thugs.