It certainly is telling that even with all of the crime emergencies, red-light enforcements, speed traps, juvenile curfews, ShotSpotters and surveillance cameras, there’s still no end of criminal mischief that can be had by any poorly-mannered child with an armload of rocks. Earlier this year, as the spring gave way to the heat of the summer, every major press organ in the city covered the upswing in incidents related to the damage and injury caused by rock-throwing kids. Especially well-documented were the goings-on on a stretch of 11th Street, NW in Columbia Heights, where children, using the vantage point of high balconies to both target victims and evade arrest, turned the corridor into a harrowing ordeal for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists alike.

Now, ABC News reports that there has been an increase of this sort of activity on the Capital Beltway, where 21 vehicles have been damaged by rocks and bricks thrown from the Temple Hills Road overpass.

While an investigation of these new incidents is ongoing, history has taught residents of the city and its outlying suburbs that measurable crackdowns on this sort of criminal activity are rare. But while it might be easy to let rock throwing juveniles take their place alongside the Cherry Blossom Festival as a landed DC tradition, the unavoidable fact is that this activity will likely end in a fatality — either from the act itself or some retaliatory gesture.

Seeing as how presumptive Mayor Adrian Fenty enrobed himself in the pageantry of voting against the D.C. Council original crime emergency bill, maybe it’s time we heard from the candidate on this matter. Make no mistake: at first blush, a city-wide Anti-Rock Throwing Initiative sounds pretty stupid. But until some city official addresses this concern, the only people who will be speaking with any measure of gravitas about it will be the victims of these attacks.