Dangerous times

You would like to think Baton Rouge is safer than Los Angeles. But it wasn't for Ryan Francis, the USC point guard, who came back home for Mother's Day, only to be shot and killed in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Safety, it seems, is a relative thing.

You might want to say that being out at 3 a.m. is a bad thing. But let's be real here, college kids aren't on the same schedule as the rest of the world. College kids are out at 2 and 3 a.m. and not getting killed every weekend.

You might want to point a finger at the people in the car with Francis that night. But do friend selections have to be matters of life and death?

The shooting of Francis is a reminder of not only how short life is but how dangerous these days are. They remind us again of how we must do something, anything, to stop the senseless killings that happen routinely and go unnoticed until they involve high-profile athletes.

Ryan Francis' death is shocking. Shocking because he was so young. Shocking because of where it happened.

Unfortunately such deaths among young people are not all that shocking at all anymore.