Granted, there are a few intermediary steps involved. Public officials, through action or inaction, contribute to the deaths of citizens all the time, but rarely is the chain of causation so clear and so avoidable. After the vicious young thugs who terrorized Fat Tuesday themselves, the person who came out of this atrocity with the most blood on his hands is the mayor. And the most regrettable aspect of the next day's earthquake is that it came only hours before the start of an uproar that would have guaranteed the removal of this breathtakingly incompetent and venal man from elected office once and for all.
Young thugs roam the streets, preying on the weak and drunk.
They attack a young woman. Because they could. Kris Kime comes to her aid. Because unlike most of the Mardi Gras revelers, he was honorable enough not to stand by and watch someone getting the life thrashed out of her. The thugs turn on Kime.