#johnathan ball

This was from 2015 when a bunch of the Socal dudes came out for the perfect Arizona weather. We headed to one of the OG skateparks in the area for a warm up before we hit the streets and J-Ball busted out this insane 3 out of a launch into a grass bank. This thing is scarier enough just jumping straight. Watch the full edit here.

Just after noon on the 20th of March, 1993, 3-year old Johnathan Ball was shopping with his babysitter, buying a Mother’s Day card in Warrington, England. At approximately 12:25pm, 2 bombs planted in cast-iron trash bins by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army exploded, injuring over 50 people, and killing young Johnathan instantly. 5 days later, Tim Parry, a 12-year old who’d been injured severely by the blast was taken off life-support. The IRA blamed the British authorities for the death of the children, for not responding quickly enough to their vague bomb threat, which had been phoned in to the local Samaritans charity in Liverpool about a half hour before the blasts. The threat warned the bomb had been placed outside a Boots shop (a major British pharmacy chain), so police were sent to the Boots in Liverpool, not Warrington, where the blasts occurred. A charity was founded by the boys’ families to create a peace centre in town, to foster understanding and peace in communities affected by violence. The individual(s) responsible for the bombing and deaths of two children was never found. The Cranberries, an Irish band, were on tour in England at the time and singer Dolores O'Riordan wrote “Zombie” in protest of the bombing. The lyric “it’s the same old thing since 1916” refers to the Easter Rebellion, a major armed insurrection in Dublin by Irish rebels against British rule, lamenting that the British and Irish had been killing each other for generations. “Zombie” was released the following year on the band’s sophomore album No Need To Argue, and would be one of the band’s biggest hits.

Made our way to a pretty famous Arizona ditch spot and Ball put it down for SmC. This is one of those tricks and spots that was just way harder to pull than it looks but still turned out sick.