Anybody who has watched gangster movies knows there's usually a code for criminals that varies from not whacking "made men" to refusing to engage in gunplay on Sundays. Unfortunately, in real life, things are increasingly becoming like the Wild Wild West, where all bets are off.

A recent New York Times article reveals a frightening trend, where retaliation shoot-outs are taking place at funerals, candlelight vigils and even churches in Oakland and Richmond, Calif. Young people aren't stopping at the murder of one another; they are taking the violence to a whole new level by targeting the victims' family members and friends in sacred spaces.

In the latest attack, Rachael Green, 19, and two teenagers were critically injured shortly after midnight Wednesday in West Oakland. Green had graduated from high school the previous week and was attending a candlelight vigil for Damon Williams, 17, who was shot and killed Monday night in the parking lot of Eastmont Mall in East Oakland.

The police said assailants sprayed gunfire into the crowd of mourners. No one was arrested.

In April, gunfire erupted inside the Cosmopolitan Baptist Church, also in East Oakland, at a packed funeral for a teen who had been shot to death at his 18th birthday party. No one was injured, but the shooting sparked pandemonium. Two teenagers were arrested.

In February, gunmen entered a service at the New Gethsemane Church of God in Christ in Richmond to kill two teenage brothers. The brothers were wounded, and an 18-year-old Richmond man is charged with three counts of attempted murder.

Oakland had the highest crime rate of any city in California last year, and it has already registered 40 homicides in 2010. Richmond had the third highest crime rate in the state; it has had nine homicides this year.

Unfortunately, this is a similar story in cities throughout the country.

Reverends and community activists say that many of these young people have grown up witnessing violence and gunplay all their young lives, desensitizing them to violence. Somewhere our young men (and sometimes young women) have made a pathological turn, where their fury knows no bounds.

I can't imagine what it must feel like to actually murder someone. That is one major issue -- feeling so angry, destructive, uncaring and hateful that you have no qualms about ending another person's life.

On the other hand, to then take the time to find out where your victim's family and friends are grieving and then attempt to end their lives too or seek out your victims while they worship in sacred spaces, such as a church, is an entirely different level of destructive and vengeful behavior.

These teens have devolved into animals, and you have to put the blame on the parents, who clearly haven't nurtured, loved and reared their children enough to let them know that life is sacred, valuable, limitless, precious. They haven't raised these children to care, to love, to seek a better tomorrow, to enjoy what life has to offer, to believe. To have FAITH.

"Faith" is both a powerful word and concept: faith allows you to conceive above and beyond your present circumstances. Faith enables you to understand and know in your core that it isn't what is around you that matters but what you can create, manifest and accomplish through your own efforts and hard work. Faith effaces the self-pity and pushes you to know and do better.

The many voids and lack of purpose in these teens' lives speaks volumes. Until we take a hands-on approach in dealing with these abandoned children, we will have to live in a very real, tangible fear -- faith's antithesis -- with no comfort or refuge to be found.