Baltimore Sun police reporter Justin Fenton went to a vigil last night and ended up at a shooting in Southwest Baltimore. "Couldn't believe," he wrote me in an e-mail at 10:47 p.m.

It's one more sad part of a city trying to stop the killings. The city's NAACP president, Marvin "Doc" Cheatham Sr. is trying to organize a rally on Jan. 31 to get people angry at the violence. There have been more than a dozen slayings in Baltimore so far this year. Here is the Baltimore Sun's homicide map.

Here is Justin's story:

More than 70 people gathered in the street in front of Tomasina Degree's home last night to mourn the death of her 23-year-old son, Kip, who was fatally shot in Southwest Baltimore last week. They remembered his love of dancing, and talked about how he had found God and was making something of his life. A youth pastor concluded the candlelight vigil with frank warnings of the dangers of gun violence.

But Baltimore's streets recognize no moment of silence. As the crowd dispersed, several patrol officers sent to monitor the vigil jumped into their cars and joined the slew of officers responding to a shooting less than a mile away in the Jamestowne apartment complex, where a man was rushed to Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

The vigil for Kip Degree had been relatively upbeat -- there were more laughs than tears as they recalled his infectious personality, seemingly always breaking into spontaneous dancing and goofing off.
 
"Kip brought positive energy everywhere," said one friend. "We all know how good of a person he was. So crazy, so fun."

Co-workers and his manager at Shoe City spoke about how well he connected with customers, and how he aspired to become a manager. "He was like a son to me. I never, never saw him unhappy," said a man who identified himself as Degree's manager.

"We partied together, we danced together, we cried together -- we did everything together," said his mother, Tomasina Degree, who played Boyz II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" from speakers blaring from her front porch.

Kip Degree was shot in the head last Thursday night in the 5000 block of Dickey Hill Rd, found in the hallway of an apartment complex. His mother said she did not know why he would have been there, but recalled being worried after not hearing from him for several hours. She returned home after driving around looking for him to find a card tucked into her front door that instructed her to call Baltimore homicide detectives.

She acknowledged that her son had gone through troubles in life -- court records show several arrests related to domestic violence and peace orders -- but said he had become deeply religious and repented his sins.

"Put down the guns, stop the violence, and keep Kip and my family in your prayers," she pleaded.

Minister Anthony N. Savoy, a youth minister at New Generations Ministries, spoke directly to the issue of street violence. He decried black-on-black violence and gang activity that he said is impacting generations of Baltimore's families.