How do you stop a “disrespect” killing, like the 2011 shooting of Gregory McFadden, who ended up with 18 bullets in his body for turning his back on someone, asks Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks. “Disrespect has been around for centuries, of course,” Rodricks writes, “but its consequences have been particularly lethal in the age of the high-powered handgun. Killing someone because he disrespected you is a phenomenon that no amount of police power or community vigilance can seem to stop.”
Recounting the gruesome facts established in a trial last week, Rodricks says, “I hardly think this is an unusual story. In fact, I think it’s more common than we generally believe.” Two men may face life terms in the McFadden case, but the police clearance rate for homicides is at best 50 percent. The fewer cleared, the “less we understand about the nature of the homicides that keep dragging this city down,” Rodricks writes, concluding by asking of “disrespect” killings, “how do the cops stop that kind of insanity?”