I've noticed a trend at school of more fights for trivial reasons. You know, someone steps on a shoe or makes a rude comment and the "victim" comes out swinging. I'd assumed it was just high spirits on the part of kids or increased awareness on my part -- but now I see it is probably part of a larger trend.

Andre Vincent Jr. was inside a Forestville carryout, joking with a neighborhood acquaintance. When the wordplay turned tense, Vincent, 19, tried to defuse the situation, waving off Wendell E. Jones and saying, "Ah, y'all a clown."

Thirty minutes later, as Vincent stepped to his car with a group of friends, Jones, 22 at the time, sneaked up behind him and fired six bullets into his head. As Jones walked away, court testimony would reveal, he snickered, "Who's the clown now?"

The 2004 murder was part of what law enforcement sees as an alarming trend in Prince George's County: low-"flash point" killings, in which attackers resort to deadly violence over trivial confrontations.

Police say the trend, in part, drove the sharp increase in the county's homicide count last year: 173, a record and a spike from the 148 that occurred in 2004. Twenty people have been killed in the county as of yesterday, compared with 33 by the same date in 2005.

Any speculation on what causes this increased tendency to resort to deadly force over trivial insults? Any suggestions over what to do about it?

Posted by: Greg at 11:37 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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