On Monday evening, members of the Edgard community gathered at New Jerusalem Baptist Church to hold a vigil prompted by a recent murder in the community to raise awareness of the violent crime that has plagued St. John the Baptist Parish since the start of 2013. Already a somber occasion, the event was made all the more somber by the events that unfolded in Boston earlier that day when bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing at least three and injuring numerous others.

While the two crimes — the late-night shooting of a solitary man and an orchestrated attack on a crowded event — may seem quite disparate in nature, a similar cause, a similar motivation lies at the heart of both.

Authorities are still searching for the individual or group responsible for the attack in Boston, so what actually made the person or group responsible place those explosive devices in that location is still not clear. But what is clear is the lack of regard those responsible have for human life. They see other people as dispensable, mere pawns to be used to advance their own agendas with no innate value. And that is exactly what lies at the heart of the crime problem in St. John Parish.

Those young people killing each other on the streets have a total disregard for the value of human life. To them, other people are merely stepping stones to be used or hurdles to be jumped by whatever means necessary.

All violence is senseless. Only by returning to the

values once standard in civilized society can we hope to put such senselessness behind us.