Following up on yesterday's blotter, we're sorry to pass along word from today's Chronicle that one of the murder victims over the weekend, David Sterling, was killed on the way home Monday afternoon, after picking up a burrito for his girlfriend. Investigators think it was supposed to be a retaliation shooting from the guy shot in the garage by kids on bikes a day earlier, but because Sterling had no record and no known gang affiliations, the investigators think it might have been a case of mistaken identity.

Another victim profiled in the story (J. Daniel Schirra, pictured here), was a radio and television major at SF State. He was on the Dean's List and was scheduled to graduate this spring. Schirra was last seen when his friends dropped him off at his apartment around 1 a.m Monday morning. His naked body was found 2 hours later a few blocks from there.

We're currently at 81 murders for the year (the paper says 79, but two more came in after the article went to press, according to the SFCrime Blog). If the rate continues, we'll be at 120 for the year, which would be the highest number since 1993, when the count was at 133. By comparison, last year total we only had 85.

Okay, here's our thought. These two stories are really horribly sad. But why aren't we getting similar stories about the other 77 murder victims this year in the Chron? (Let us say right now that we are not interested in hearing comments about how the murder victims deserved to die or anything like that -- if you want to talk about that, go to the SFGate comment section on this story instead.) We know they're stretched pretty thin over at the Chron these days, but maybe they could do something similar to the NY Times's Portraits of Grief and do thumbnail profiles of every homicide victim this year. It might be a really interesting way to put a human face on the growing public safety problem.