Seventeen-year-old LaCole Hines, mother to an one-month-old infant, died in the hospital last week after being shot in the head by her 23-year-old boyfriend. Marcus Shipman had threatened Hines and a neighbor with a gun two weeks prior, which carries a felony charge of first-degree assault. Though crimes involving guns and violence are to be treated as priorities and a warrant for Shipman's arrest was issued, he was never apprehended. The warrant was misfiled as a misdemeanor, one of tens of thousands of unserved warrants in limbo in Prince George's County, Maryland.

When current sheriff Michael A. Jackson took office in 2002, there was a backlog of 30,000 unserved arrest warrants. Today, his office refuses to even release a figure and claims the death of LaCole Hines was an isolated incident. Now, what was once thought to be a series of clerical errors has resulted in a young mother's death.

Demand justice for LaCole Hines! Demand an investigation into the Prince George's County warrant and arrest backlog. Hines' death was tragically preventable.