There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks.”
A harbinger of mayhem and violence, it blows in summers across cities like Los Angeles, turning the streets pitiless.
As tempers and the red stuff in thermometers rise, beatings, stabbings and shootings spike.
As cops and criminologists know, a hot wind does things to people.
America's cities are in for a hot wind this summer.
Last year, the homicide rates in large cities rose, on average, 30%.
In some cities, the increase was far worse. In Minneapolis, homicides rose 72%; in Portland, 82%.
This summer will be even more violent.
"Unless the American people speak out," the Miami chief of police told CNN this week, "it’s gonna be a long, hot, bloody summer."
