Even as prosecutors were getting ready yesterday to arraign the alleged killers of Chiara Levin, police in Maryland were arresting somebody for an equally notorious 1995 murder in Dorchester.

The two cases might be indirectly related: The 1995 murder of Bobby Mendes, allegedly by Arnoldo Lopes, started a gang war in the Cape Verdean community that just never really ended.

In 2005, Lopes's brother was shot to death in Randolph. In 2006, Mendes's brother, Alexander Lopes, was shot to death (near where his brother had been fatally stabbed). And this past March 24, according to police, two Cape Verdeans got into a beef at a party and took it outside, where, in a hail of gunfire, Chiara Levin died.

Meanwhile, the Globe answers the question: If one of the people charged with Levin's murder was an "armed career criminal," what was he doing out on the street?

Well, OK, they allow as how maybe the cops had something to do with the arrests but that:

.. The short press release from the BPD mirrors exactly the information we passed along to them after receiving a tip from someone in the community. ...

Casimiro Barros was an "armed career criminal" (quite an accomplishment for someone at the tender age of 20). He'd been arrested most recently in December for unlawful possession of a firearm - after he'd led police on a high-speed chase. And yet now he's charged (along with another alleged winner) in Chiara Levin's murder. Why wasn't he behind bars on the earlier charges? How many other ticking time bombs like him are walking around today?

An "armed career criminal" and another alleged gang member will be arraigned Monday on charges they killed Chiara Levin on March 24 during a shootout, prosecutors said today.

Levin, visiting from Kentucky, was shot in the head during an early morning shootout between Casimiro Barros, the alleged career criminal from Roxbury at just 21 and Manuel Andrade, 34, of Dorchester, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley. In a statement, Conley described the night of her death:

Chiara Levin was with two friends at the Caprice Lounge on Tremont Street in Boston. There she and her friends met Manuel Andrade and two other men. Levin and her friends went with Andrade and his associates to an after-hours party at 415 Geneva Avenue in Dorchester. Levin and her friends drove there in a Cadillac Escalade with Andrade and the other men. The facts also establish that Andrade carried with him a loaded handgun.

This after-hours party at 415 Geneva Avenue was very crowded. At some point during this party, Manuel Andrade got into an altercation and shot an individual inside the party. Andrade returned to the Escalade, which was parked on the corner of Westville Street and Geneva Avenue, where Levin, her friends and Andrade's friends were waiting inside the vehicle.

Standing next to the Escalade, Andrade now exchanged gunfire with Casimiro Barros who was standing in front of 415 Geneva Ave. During the exchange of gunfire, Chiara Levin was struck in the head by a single bullet and was pronounced dead early that same morning at Boston Medical Center where she and her friends had been taken.

Barros is no stranger to police. On Dec. 14, 2006, he briefly led police on a high-speed chase. When they caught up with him, they say they discovered a gun in the car and arrested him on a variety of charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition and being being an armed career criminal.

On April 4, 2006, he and a companion were stopped by police. His companion was arrested for unlawful possession of a loaded hangun; Barros was arrested on a charge of being a disorderly person.

Interesting discussion over at Boston Crime about her - you've got folks living in the neighborhood, a friend of hers and white suburbanites who think it's racist to suggest that Boston's violent crime only started getting a lot of attention when a young white woman got killed.

Also, one thing I never expected when I set that crime site up was that some of the entries would become virtual memorials to some of the murder victims (see here and here).

But not the alleged troublemaker who also wound up at Boston Medical Center around the same time as Levin, police say in a report that explains some of the events the morning she died:

... Upon deciding to leave, Ms. Levin and her two friends again accepted a ride from the three males, while inside the vehicle and about to leave the area, gunshots were fired at the vehicle.

Ms. Levin was struck by gunfire and another male passenger (one whom she had just met that evening) was also struck and suffered a non-life threatening injury.

It is now known that the vehicle left the area of Geneva Ave. and Westville Street, traveled to the area of Bowdoin Street and Adams Street, where it briefly stopped. There two of the males (met that night) exited the vehicle and the vehicle continued to travel to Boston Medical Center. ...

The Globe today has a story on that poor Kentucky woman shot in the head in Dorchester. Along with the story is a photo that is heavily cropped and uncredited (at least in the online version). Here's the complete photo.

Danville High grad gunned down in Boston - Danville Advocate-Messenger.

Photo from Chiara Levin's Facebook page.

The woman, 22, was found with a gunshot wound at Geneva Avenue and Westville Street around 4 a.m. Rushed to Boston Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. Possibly related to a party in the area.