THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT

To stop violent crime, we need to grasp what really drives it.

- BY MALCOLM GLADWELL

Late on a Sunday night in June of 2023, a woman named Carlishia Hood and her fourteen-year-old son, an honor student, pulled into Maxwell Street Express, a fast-food joint in West Pullman, on the far South Side of Chicago. Her son stayed in the car. Hood went inside. Maxwell is a no-frills place—takeout-style, no indoor seating. It’s open twenty-four hours a day. Hood asked for a special order—without realizing that at Maxwell, a busy place, special orders are frowned upon. The man behind her in line got upset; she was slowing things down. His name was Jeremy Brown. On the street, they called him the Knock-Out King. Brown began to gesticulate, his arms rising and fall-ing in exasperation. He argued with Hood, growing more agitated. Then he cocked his fist, leaned back to bring the full weight of his body into the motion, and punched her in the head.

When the argument had started, Hood texted her son, asking him to come inside. Now he was at the door, slight and tentative in a white hoodie. He saw Brown punch his mother a second time. The boy pulled out a revolver and shot Brown in the back. Brown ran from the restaurant. The boy pursued him, still firing. Brown died on the street—one of a dozen men killed by gunfire in Chicago that weekend.