With all the buzz around Lethbridge regarding the Lethbridge Skateboard Association putting pressure on city council for adequate skate facilities, one has to wonder why something like this is important to a community.

            This past week I learned quite a bit regarding the issue through conversation with LSA advocate Wade Galloway and websites such as www.lethskate.ca and www.lethbridgeaccountability.ca.

            I was shocked to later stumble upon online news that a father in Valrico, Florida was shot and killed after stepping in to defend a young boy who was skateboarding in a ‘no skateboarding allowed’ area.

            According to the St. Petersburg Times, 41-year-old David James was at the park with his six-year-old daughter when he saw Trevor Dooley, 69, confronting the young skateboarder.

            James and Dooley began to argue and get physical, and police were called to the scene later to find James dead.

            On Sept. 29 Dooley was arrested and charged with manslaughter.

Is it possible that a simple law prohibiting skateboarding could lead to someone being killed? The answer is, I suppose so.

            Perhaps this is something we need to be taking more seriously in our city.

            City council did help deliver a skateboard park in 1999, which was built in a remote area of north Lethbridge.

            The city decided to allow for graffiti on the park in an attempt to isolate these sorts of behavours from occurring in places everyone else would have to look at.

            Galloway’s response is that the allowed vandalism sends the message to users and the public that this is a place that isn’t cared for, looked after or monitored. He notes that kids who skateboard are not bad kids.

            I spent some time with Galloway and his son Andrew to write a story on the issue and Andrew showed me where he liked to skate. It was a partially developed area near his house on the Westside, which he commonly referred to as the Black Road.

            I can imagine the difficulty Wade might face as a father, sending his son to the opposite end of the city to skate at the existing park, which is nowhere near any emergency facilities, businesses or even a payphone.

            It seems logical that Andrew Galloway would find the safest place to skate is close to home.

            If the city wants to appease business owners and residents by enforcing no skateboard policies in certain areas of the city, should they not then provide safe, centralized parks for kids who love the sport to be able to practise it?