I told you about this...

What's crackin', friends and frienemies?

I hope you've all been well and have had a restful break from me blogging. See how I flipped that and put the onus on you for my absense? Man, I'm good. I should be a politician.

Anywho, I've been plotting my takeover of the world in recent weeks, starting with conquering the Internets.

On a more serious note, I wanted to write a quick something about a current homicide case unfolding in the Miami area.

In mid-September, 17-year-old Danny Rodriguez, a student at Coral Gables High School, fatally stabbed classmate Juan Carlos Rivera, also 17, on campus.

Since then speculation, based on what friends and family of both young men had to say, was that this murder was largely about a fight over a girl.

And it turns out that was part of it. But what actually prompted the murder, the morning of Sept. 15th? A "mean mug," or as Rodriguez told police in interrogation video released yesterday, a "bad face."

Yep, on the morning of the murder Rivera gave too tough a look to Rodriguez and took a knife in the gut and the back for it.

Some of you not familiar with the urban colloquialism of "mean mug" may think it's a stretch that a "bad look" could prompt a murder in any but an insane person, but consider it a sign of the times.

When I covered crime back in the day, I wrote about murder cases in which the otherwise "normal" suspect took a life over a scuffed shoe, flirting with another man's girlfriend, scratching another man's car bumper, and so on. I could go on and the "motives" would get even more trite, but I think you get the point.

So I have to say I'm not surprised, not even a little bit.

May Rivera rest in peace.

Follow me: http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Comments

[the sarcasticynic]

Remind me never to walk through Coral Gables High School after having just eaten a lemon.

--- Rodriguez split with Daimilsis … after she refused to give him her Myspace.com password.

That exact thing happened to me in the ‘70s. Only it was her locker combination she refused to give me.

--- “It's when -- when I got back with my girlfriend that he started looking at me funny,” Rodriguez said of Rivera.

“Funny”???

--- “I took it out of my pocket, and I got him like that, from the side,”' Rodriguez said. “Here in the side, and the other one, I think -- I don't know -- maybe around the back.”

Proud much?

[mark]

Thats a pretty tough crowd down there James. Back in Iowa where I grew up we would have settled it with a wrestling match. Maybe a few skinned shins and a bloody nose. I guess those days are gone.