This is the column I didn't want to write.

Not one month into the new year, and Calhoun County already has its first homicide. So much for death taking an extended holiday.

Sunday night, someone shot Dariontae Brooks in the head. He died at the scene, a victim of more than just a bullet.

Police say he was sitting in the living room of an apartment on Pine Avenue in Anniston, watching an NFL playoff game on TV. Friends surrounded him. Shots were fired through the apartment door, police said; a bullet hit one man in the arm. He survived.

Two armed men then entered the apartment, police say, and ended the 22-year-old Brooks' life.

What a start to 2010.

If you've followed this tragic story, you've heard those who knew Brooks describe him as a decent man with a 1-year-old son. Online court records show two minor blemishes on his adult record, though nothing of the sort that would predict such a violent and early end to his life.

Brooks' killing is bad enough — for his family, for his now-fatherless son, for his friends, and for whoever pulled the trigger. Homicide is a societal cancer, an evil among us, an act of ultimate violence that's existed since the time of Cain and Abel.

But in Anniston, Sunday's homicide has reopened too many of the festering wounds remaining from the deadly years of 2006-08, when the city resided at the center of Calhoun County's grisly and elevated homicide totals.

Gun-control advocates can point to Brooks' killing as another quintessential illustration of why pistols on the streets equal death.

Gun owners say that's why they're needed.

Those who relish the anti-Anniston debate — that residents should migrate from Anniston to other (and safer) Calhoun County cities — have another example to use. In this county, homicide's mainly an Anniston problem, they say.

And bigots can cast stones, jeering at the seemingly unstoppable high rate of black-on-black crime in America, believing it's not their problem as long as it happens on the other side of town — or another town, if that's the case.

Let's be clear: Homicide stains everyone involved. The human damage is immeasurable. It rips apart all in its path.

But it's nonsensical to believe that a city's soul isn't flayed when violence and bloody streets become constant headlines in the daily paper.

Think New Orleans' reputation isn't irreparably scarred by its historically high homicide rate?

Think Birmingham isn't damaged by its place as Alabama's deadliest city?

Think Anniston's name isn't broken when homicide happens in our midst, regardless of the part of town in which it occurs?

If you love Anniston, if you care for Calhoun County, you pray that Brooks' killing isn't a precursor to a bloody 2010. It doesn't matter where you live, or the color of your skin.

That's my fear today, that this year may signal a return to the county's recent deadly years. As good as the Rev. Frederick Durant's Stop the Violence program has been for Anniston, it was wrenching to read this week that this well-intentioned and proactive group was going to reconvene and "try to come up with how to combat this ... We hope there won't be any retaliation (for Brooks' killing)."

A retaliation?

More violence?

Another homicide?

That's the last thing we need.

What it does need are more community leaders like Durant who will denounce the horrific violence and its root causes, drug abuse and dropout rates and fractured, fatherless families.

It's one thing to say you care about reducing the violence in our towns and do nothing about it; most of us are probably guilty of that. But it's altogether different to roll up your sleeves and preach first-hand — in our churches, in our homes, on our street corners — the evils of violence and the value of smart decisions. With tonight's Stop the Violence vigil, Durant and his group are displaying the type of proactive leadership this community craves.

People like that can save towns. Lives, too.

None of us are perfect. Our towns reflect that truth. But homicide is an imperfect, destructive trend we can do without.