The death of Shaki Crockwell on Friday night is more clear proof, as if any more was needed, that all is not well in Bermuda.

It would be wrong to speculate on the motives behind the killing while the investigation is ongoing, but what is known will have shocked all law-abiding Bermudians.

The fact that 25-year-old Mr. Crockwell was a prominent football player who was captain of a leading Premier Division club and was considered good enough to play for Bermuda, has given his death added notoriety. All violent deaths are tragic, but if Mr. Crockwell's prominence in the community can help in any way to put an end to the cycle of violent crime in Bermuda, then some good may come out of this.

While it is true that Mr. Crockwell had a chequered past, that is no reason to suggest that he somehow had less reason to live than anyone else, and if it is the case that he was trying to turn his life around, then that makes his murder all the more devastating.

It would be comforting to think that this was an isolated incident that did not reflect on Bermuda society, but the fact is that Mr. Crockwell is just the latest in an all too long list of young Bermudian men who have been killed in recent years.

A little more than a year ago, 19-year-old Jason Lightbourne was murdered in Ord Road, Paget. Ten months ago, Marcus Gibbings was murdered in his apartment in Devonshire. In 2003 Shaundae Jones was murdered in Dockyard. No one has been brought to court for those crimes.

Other murders have been prosecuted. But there were three murders in 2005 and the same number in 2006. Mr. Crockwell is the first person to have died violently this year, but that is not because violent crime is declining. It is rising. The miracle is that there have not been more deaths.

Almost all recent murders have involved young men, and almost all have been black. That is not entirely accidental, although every death has its own unique characteristics. A great deal has been said and written about the plight of young black men and the fact that they trail in educational attainment, account for most of Bermuda's unemployed and make up the vast majority of the island's prison population.

And yet no one would suggest that they are less intelligent or able than white men or women of any race. Instead, social and cultural attitudes conspire to make black men less successful and more prone to committing, or being the victims of, serious crime.

More than a year ago, when Alex Scott was still Premier, it was reported that a study on young black men commissioned by him was due to go before the Cabinet. Nothing has been heard about it since.

It is impossible to speculate on what caused Mr. Crockwell's death at this early stage. But too many young men, most of them black, have died or been maimed in recent years for Bermuda to turn a blind eye to a problem that is spiralling out of control.

The community has to say that enough is enough. And an end to this spiralling problem has to begin with those who know anything about Mr. Crockwell's death, and the other unsolved murders of recent years, coming forward and telling the Police what they know so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice and the families of the victims can receive some closure.