I expected better from C-Span. Do they not have a call screener?
From the left, do I really need to say on national TV that police departments are controlled lock, stock and barrel by the Klan?
From the right, do I really need to have to answer for a caller who talks about:
Caller: RAMPAGING BLACK CRIMINALITY THAT IS RAMPANT FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE PACIFIC AND FROM CANADA TO MEXICO IN THIS NATION.
Moskos: YOU KNOW, I AM PART OF THAT REGION. I DON’T SEE THAT RAMPAGE, BUT GO ON…
On the plus side, it was long-form. But it really was the worst format of “remote studio stare into a camera with no visual clues at all.” Plus my head looks fat, as “fat-head” was quick to tell me.
I don’t want to make too much out of this, but there is something just a little funny about a reporter being robbed on camera and then running, in tears, to the police. No, it’s not funny because somebody is robbed. No, it’s not funny that she was traumatized by it. It is just a little funny because at the same time she might be filing a report about police brutality, who does she run crying to when threatened? The police.
Or… maybe she’s just harassing an innocent unarmed youth. After all, the guy said he didn’t do it.
It’s the moral equivalence that bother police. The idea that people would take word of the mob purse snatcher as equal to a cop’s word. Even worse is the idea, which I hear a lot of, that these guys are actually morally superior to working police officers. It’s absurd. (You can get another take on this from a previous post.)
Here’s the thing about the guys who were threatening her: it’s not like they just appeared yesterday and won’t be here tomorrow. Police deal with these guys literally every day. These dozen youths are out there every night in the streets of Baltimore. They might not always be acting up quite so much. But sometimes they are. Too many people pretend it’s all about bad police oppressing good people. But they don’t live or work in neighborhoods where they get harassed by these specific youths. But good people do. And they call the police. I’m talking class, not race.
Police handle “routine calls for service” like this every hour. When I texted my friend working the Eastern last night wishing him well, he replied, “Thanks brother. Just another night in the hood! Lol.”
A typical call may be because Pops called 911 because these kids on the corner, in front of his house, are being loud, rowdy, breaking bottles, and otherwise disrespectful. You get the call. You pull up. You’re solo. There they are. Deal with it. That’s what cops do. Every goddamn day. You know, I got tired telling the same group of drug dealers to get off the same corner every goddamn night. But I did. I had to. It was my job.
Usually what happens in the ghetto stays in the ghetto. Literally and figuratively. I spoke to many teenagers in the Eastern who had never been downtown. Never been out of Baltimore. Never left their neighborhood. It might be one thing to never leave your neighborhood if you live somewhere nice, but if your whole world is centered around Rutland and Crystal? (Go on, google-steet-view 1511 Rutland Ave, Baltimore MD 21213 and take a look around. Hell, buy that home for $8,000!) Take a stroll down the 1700 block of Crystal Ave. No wonder you’re messed up. Who do you think is pulling the trigger on 200-plus homicides a year in the city of Baltimore? Since Freddie Gray died in police hands — between April 13 and April 26 — there have been 8 murders in Baltimore.
So yesterday — along with hundreds of peaceful protesters — a bit of the ghetto broke out of the ghetto. Now if you’re so ideologically inclined you might think that’s good. Or, if you’re in a restaurant where things are being thrown through the windows, you might not (while praying that a Molotov cocktail doesn’t follow suit). But here are a dozen human being society tries to ignore, until we put them in prison. I’m not talking about the protesters. I’m talking about these dozen thugs.
And I don’t actually blame these kids for being foolish — I know they’re fools, but hell, they never had a chance. Look where they grew up. Look at their parents — as much as I blame the people who apologize for their bad actions. Those who call mindless violence a “rebellion” or “giving voice to the voiceless.” Those who blame police for trying to calm a disturbance. Those who believe in the false ideal of the gentleman thug.
So we pay police to deal with the problems of our country and to somehow contain these kids so they don’t beat up working tax-paying voters. We, collectively, have failed. And then we wait for police to make a mistake and blame it all on them.
The good news from Baltimore, best I understand it — and this is based on my non-knowledge from 220-miles away (ie: twitter and social media, a friend watching a live feed at TV studio, and a few police friends) — is that things seems to be calmer downtown.
I do not mean things are over. Certainly not for police officers working all night. It’s going to be a long night. I mean calmer in the sense I’m going to go to bed (unlike the BPD) and feel confident that police are in control, that the city won’t burn down overnight. It’s a good sign when social media posts go from describing violence and chaos to complaining about “Wildly disproportionate police presence for a couple dozen protesters.” That’s a very good sign.
When things get ugly, when it’s not about protest but violence, then you gotta go in there and make sure things do not explode. As a friend’s dad told him, don’t get in fight with police because they’re not in the habit of losing. The important thing is that everybody gets to go home alive.
Let’s hope the worst is over. Police used both force and restraint tonight. It’s a tough night to be BPD. To those I worked with and those I do not know: stay safe.
Battles are going in Baltimore. Link to tweets from the Sun. In the long run, police are going to win this. It’s just a question of how many people get hurt in the process.
This breaks my heart. Not just for the people I know at risk, but also for Baltimore. I love Baltimore.
This New York Times story is interesting. And these facts (which were new to me) are unknown or ignored by conservative police officers, who have somehow decided that the DOJ hates cops.
Things went well in Baltimore last night. So far, knock on wood, nobody else has gotten seriously hurt.
Compare this with police tactics in Ferguson. But Baltimore is better than Ferguson. And the BPD is better than the FPD. What we have not seen are flash-bang grenades. No tear gas. No gun shots (except for the “normal” Baltimore homicides). No riots. No fires. No looting.
Nothing is easy. But a bit of police restraint has gone a long way to keeping the peace. So kudos to all the brave Baltimore City police officers for a job well done.
Seeing all those cops lined up last night at the Western District WITHOUT riot gear — looking like human beings, not being provocative, taking shit (and a few bottles), looking bored, and being professional about it — it made me proud to have been a Baltimore cop.
The whole no riot gear thing is interesting. I heard former commissioner Hammsay on CNN that he he didn’t like that, tactically. “Somebody may get hurt.” He was right. But in this case it worked. Yes, it was just luck. I’m saying this in hindsight. But luck matters.
So what if police had been decked out in riot gear?Sure shields and helmets give you needed protection against rocks and bottles. They also dehumanize police officers and provide a target for people throwing things. What if some SWAT-like team was there, looking bad-ass? (Is it still “QRT” or have they have they been rebranded?) Throw in an armored personnel carrier with a turreted machine parked right out front. Well, think of the message that would send! Now we’ve got a party!
[not Baltimore]
And then somebody throws a bottle. Or maybe lights a fire. And police respond with tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades (the latter makes no sense at all, but anyway)? And then there’s a baton charge. What if in that melee police get hurt? Seriously hurt. Well then those injuries would justify the military-like action.
But that’s not what happened. Give credit where credit is due. And the Baltimore police last night deserve credit. Everybody went home. This didn’t “just happen.” These are choices made.
Look, it’s not easy to say, “Men, women, go out there and stand there like targets. If anybody throws anything at you, duck and dodge. Pray for the best.” But sometimes that is the job of police. Sometimes that is what you have to do to make sure nobody else, officers include, get seriously hurt. Also, ranking officers were there. That matters. (I did not see the mayor. Where was she? Was she at a more pressing meeting?)
Police exercised restraint. Police respected the right of people to protest. The police were professional and brave. Nobody knew how this was going to turn out. Imagine kissing your family goodbye that night before going to work, to stand in a line, in front of a police station, facing angry protesters throwing things at you. Shit is going down. “See you later, honey”! [smooch] It’s not just another day at the office.
I didn’t post this last night because I didn’t want to sound foolish if the Western burnt down and people were killed. One guy with a gun even a rock and good aim could have changed (and still could change) everything. But so far so good.
BPD says they can’t make a wagon availableto reporters? (Not the wagon but any wagon?) I hope this baby has been retired, but you never know. What you can’t see are the middle-facing bench seats fitted with seat belts.
Officers arrest somebody and call for a wagon (90 or 91). Sector cars in Baltimore City are not “cage cars” so you can’t transport prisoners in them. The wagon (perhaps driven by a paunchy officer with a few decades on the job) shows up. You give your prisoner to the wagonman (or woman). If you used metal cuffs (as you would unless you planned on making an arrest and brought plastic flex cuffs), you get your cuffs back. The prisoner gets re-cuffed and re-searched by the wagonman taking custody. Every time custody of a prisoner changes hands, the prisoner is searched.
The prisoner is then put in the wagon, selt-belted in, and taken to the district for questioning or to (state-run) central booking. Other prisoners may be picked up en-route by the wagon, as needed. On all transports, mileage of the vehicle is called into KGA at the start and end of trip (with a time stamp given by dispatch).
If the suspect is injured, you would call for an ambo to take the prisoner to the hospital. Central booking won’t take people in need of medical care. If I thought a prisoner wasn’t really hurt but said they wanted to go to the hospital (happens a lot), I would informs them of how we’d both be stuck at Hopkins Hospital for hours and how this would only delay their processing and eventual release from CBIF (all of which is true).
There is no “fast track” at the hospital for police and their prisoners. Often they’d say, “fuck it; take me to jail.” Sometimes I would give a little primer about what not to say to the intake person at CBIF (“my head hurts” “my chest hurts”) because CBIF could decide not accept a person without a doctor’s note. You certain might negotiate their need for hospital attention (read: sitting in the ER waiting room for hours for a 5-minute cursory exam). But if a prisoners insisted on going to a hospital, you don’t refuse medical treatment. You take him there. In the end it was their call.
[Apparently there’s now a metal barrier in the middle of the van.]
I always welcome intelligent comments from police officers. Here is an email (lightly edited) from a retired sergeant about police-involved shootings in general. I always appreciate thoughtful comments from police officers. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he writes (but I don’t need to). It’s a well stated opinion based on experience.
When it comes to police issues, we don’t hear from police officers enough. If you want to understand police, you need to listen to police. I reprint this with his permission:
What irritates me in this brouhaha about police shootings of unarmed people, specifically black males, is that no one as far as I can determine has said anything about the fact that the recent shooting incidents were not egregious examples of trigger happy cops simply deciding to gratuitously confront someone for the hell of it. In reality they are examples of an officer doing his duty and either conducting an investigation, responding to a call for service, or responding to an on-view situation.
For whatever reason, doing the job went south fast, but the shootings were not examples of some psychopathic cop who decided he was going to whack somebody that day to break up a boring day, or have I missed something? Plus, lo and behold, the deceased were not “innocents,” for a few had rap sheets to make a mother cry. Did they deserve to be killed? I can only answer that question the way I answered it when I was peppered by friends about my police experiences, especially when I would relate those of the “hairy” kind where justification for using my service weapon was a no-brainier, even if I didn’t see a weapon. Some of my friends would say they would have shot the person. My seemingly high-minded response was simply to say that I wasn’t raised to be an assassin, but I meant it.
…I joined the force in 1973 at age 29. Prior to this defining life experience, I did 4 years in the Marine Corps, got a BA in American History under the Vietnam era G.I. Bill program, did one year of graduate work in American History and jumped at the Police Agent Program that the [department] initiated to attract clowns like me: college graduates. My wife thought I was nuts, but she relented and continued her graduate work. Why I didn’t bag the whole thing after 6 months on the street is a question I am still trying to answer after 40 years of pondering.
As you realize, no matter what position you take on policing in this country, all types come out of the woodwork — me include — as well as [others]. In my view the average American harbors an ambivalent attitude about American law enforcement, either loving us or hating us depending who is getting the shitty stick shoved up the ass. I can attest to the fact that even good cops can be real knuckle heads when they can’t control their tempers and act professionally, sometimes with tragic results. And cops, or wannabe cops, take any kind of perceived criticisms as an unjustifiable assault on their person. So it goes.
As to more recent events in Baltimore:
Again my point being reinforced by what happened: a seemingly legitimate police action that went South for whatever reason, with two supervisors at the scene to boot, a Sgt. and a Lt. This is a head shaker.
…
Guys always take off…. They did for me when I worked [there]. The deceased … had a respectable rap sheet, so he was no cherry. However, capital punishment doesn’t apply to drug crimes, unless you live in garden spots like Iran or Saudi Arabia.
This doesn’t look good for the Agency, especially with supervision at the scene. What a fucking mess.
[No comments on this one because because it’s somebody else’s opinion.]
[photo from 
[not Baltimore]
