For the first two weeks of March, a dark cloud loomed over East Coast cities. Someone was traveling between New York and Washington, D.C., shooting homeless people as if for sport. At least two were dead and three wounded.

Who could be so wantonly callous? On March 15, Gerald Brevard III, a career criminal and drifter, was arrested in connection with one of the murders. He is also under suspicion for the others. It turns out that Brevard was a free man only because a Virginia prosecutor systematically refuses to do his job. He reportedly even demands that his staff seek the lightest possible sentences for criminals, including the most violent.