The article is originally from the NY Times:
There are 729 comments from readers there. The top reader picks seem to be highly critical of these killers:
“Just turn on any local news program and see who is responsible. Day in and day out same faces doing the crime. What in hell is the excuse now? Turn on WCBS Chanel 2 and see how many crimes occur in the 5 boroughs and the suburbs. Everybody’s life is hard. Stay in school, stop getting your girlfriends pregnant, stop doing /selling drugs, speak proper English and dress properly and you might get hired somewhere. Stop using others and past problems for your reasons for shooting and slashing people. That doesn’t fly anymore and people are buying the sorry excuses either.
I’ll eat my hat if this gets published.”
There was a shooting last year of a teenage boy and a news video that accompanied the story. I wish I had bookmarked it, because it’s a glimpse into the intractable nature of the problem. Victim was black, lying on the sidewalk dead, police tape around him, and a neighbor woman was talking to a reporter nearby, with her teenage son standing there. She was screaming all sorts of profanities and just ranting while her son looked on with a sheepish grin. She was yelling at him too. There was something really off with her. Father nowhere to be seen. This was around 12:30 in the morning. I got the impression of a hopeless situation for that boy.