The old warning against bringing a knife to a gunfight is a violent version of the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared. The recent gun violence at Lake Fayetteville seems a case of just the opposite.
If police reports are accurate, the Feb. 15 clash should have never amounted to anything more than a fist fight, if even that.
Instead, as people scurried away from an unpaved parking lot, one "man" lay dead from a gunshot.
Let me clarify the quote marks: Anyone 17 and under is considered a kid or, more officially, a juvenile. In government, courtrooms and foxholes, the dividing line between a kid and an adult is the 18th birthday. In society as well, perhaps because voting, registration for military service and graduation happens then, teens are declared adults. A line has to be drawn somewhere, but to me, we're still talking about kids.
Here, an 18-year-old is dead. I can't help thinking "There's no way that kid deserved to end up like that."
I don't know anything about Christian Rodriguez-Barroso other than the basics of how he died. Fayetteville police say shots were fired near Powell Street in Springdale and Lakeview Drive in Fayetteville. That sounds like two locations but it's not; it's on the border where the two cities meet.
Police recovered video. They say a fight broke out in that parking lot between two groups. People ran. Then there was gunfire. Police reports say Rodriguez-Barroso climbed into the bed of a pickup whose driver was attempting to leave the scene. Someone was firing at the pickup. Seconds later, Rodriguez-Barroso fell out of the pickup, coming to rest at the spot where police later found his body.
Witnesses backed what the video showed. They reported a man retrieved an AR-15 rifle from a Dodge Challenger then fired it at the pickup. Police arrested Gilberto Gordillo, 19, of Springdale on preliminary charges of capital murder and four counts of attempted murder. Four people, all between 18 and 20, were sent to the hospital with injuries from the shooting.
Gordillo is 19. I suppose that can be considered more of a "man," but still pretty much a kid in my book.
According to police, one witness said Gordillo knew in advance a fight was likely and planned to go home to get some guns.
For the record, I don't know who did what. I'm telling you what the police reported. The judicial system will determine who is guilty of any crime.
But we know a shooting happened and everyone publicly described as having been caught up in it was between 18 and 20 years old.
When I was 18, I was challenged to meet in a parking lot for a fight by a guy whose ex-girlfriend I had asked to the prom. The fight never happened because I told him there was no reason for one. The girl had every right to make up her own mind. If she wanted to go with him, so be it, I said. But what sense did it make for two guys to fight when it was entirely her decision? (She still went with me, by the way.)
Why in the world does someone not far out of high school default to gun violence to settle a dispute? Where does this teenager get an AR-15? Why does a teenager have one he can so easily bring to parking lot fight? What in our culture produces this kind of response?
This group incident suggests there's a deep and troubling mindset in our community, producing deadly results. Will we hear leaders in Fayetteville or Springdale address it? I doubt it.
Let's just be glad we don't have an NFL team that can win the Super Bowl.