Twelve years ago, a teenage girl was hit and killed by a truck at a small junction in my neighborhood. She was crossing the street with her mother when it happened, and the mother survived.

When I saw the crowd of onlookers and went to check what had happened, the girl was still lying on the ground, covered with a white blanket by the paramedics who had just pronounced her dead, her mother sitting on the sidewalk in a state of shock and grief which words cannot describe.

Then out of nowhere, an elderly woman dragged her 3–4 year old grandchild all the way to the body of the girl, pointed at her and yelled: “Look! Look what happens if you don’t pay attention when you cross the street!”

This is hands down the most shocking, cruel and senseless thing I’ve seen an adult do in public, not only to a child, but also to a parent who had just been broken to pieces by unimaginable grief.