The endless cycle of violence

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?