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Tag: ghetto culture

  • Teach your children well

    Just came across this gem, that happened back when I was on the street. It’s community policing, with an Eastern District twist.

    While going around the block and stopped at an intersection (321 Post), two boys, 10-to-13 years old, come up near the window of my car, and one says to another: “give me the money.”

    “How much?”I ask.

    “$50”

    “How’d you get $50?” I asked.

    “$50,000!”

    “Whew, that’s a lot of money.”

    They come up to my window and one says, “lock me up!”

    “What have you done?”

    “Lock me up at take me to city hall!”

    “If we take you to city hall, what would you tell the mayor?” I’m thinking this is a great opportunity for ‘stop the violence’ or ‘we need more schools.’

    “Tell the mayor I’ll bomb his house and rape his wife!”

    How does one respond to this? It’s not easy to leave a cop speechless. I drove off.

  • Lor Scoota got killed

    Lor Scoota got killed

    Yeah, I had never heard of him either. But apparently he was a big deal to a good number people in Baltimore. They liked his music. So what does he stand for? I don’t know. Google and read up if you want. What’s amazing is all the tears shed by some people who had never heard of him.

    I wrote this in a comment to another post:

    I’m not gonna lie. I never heard of Lor Scoota and don’t really give a damn about him. With my bougie life, I may not be keeping it real. I’ve been out of Baltimore too long.

    Artists and musicians should be cut a lot of slack. I mean, Willie Nelson is an unrepentant and repeated drug criminal! So yeah, do the bird flu dance all you want and have some fun. That said, I wouldn’t my kids looking up to a gun-toting drug-dealing robbery-committing motor-dirt-bike-riding victim-of-a-targeted-shooting as a potential role model. But what do I know?

    Clarence Mitchell IV, host of the C4 Show (which I’ve been on a few times):

    asked listeners to look past Lor Scoota’s past and recognize the difference he made in the community at the time he was killed.

    But it’s not at all clear his criminal past was behind him. Not at all. But one a drug dealer doesn’t mean always a drug dealer. Jay-Z worked his way to respectability. I’ve had students who once slung crack. Maybe Scoota was targeted by a hater. Maybe by a criminal rival. Maybe both. But there’s so much BS from people who don’t live in Baltimore and don’t have to be afraid of criminals. There’s so much BS from people who are able to relax and take a nap in the sun in a public park without fear the 12 O’Clock Boys are going to zoom through on ATVs and run you over.

    And there was a tense moment involving police.

    (photo: Baynard Woods)

    This is the best I’ve read, from The Baltimore Chop (worth reading it all, really. But FYI Bird Fluwas Scoota’s one big hit. In half of Baltimore.):

    If Bird Flu was the sound of the streets, it is also an anthem of everything that is wrong with this city. It’s not possible to write a song like that without having lived the experience firsthand. Sure, you could try… but you’d end up sounding as corny and benign as the Beastie Boys did early in their career. It’s not possible to separate Lor Scoota’s life from his music. If he says in the song he was moving weight, he was moving weight.

    …

    And Scoota was carrying a gun, by the way. In this song he serves notice that he was in the habit of carrying a gun constantly. He was arrested with one at the airport a while back which had the serial number ground off. He also had a handful of domestic violence charges against him including a no-contact order. Personally, we don’t believe a serial woman-beater deserves much in the way of community support, catchy hooks notwithstanding. If you consider yourself a feminist, ally, or just someone who cares at all about the general well being of women, maybe sit quietly and think a while about whether or not you want to be the type of person willing to excuse violence against women because the perpetrator has earned some small measure of notoriety.

    …

    And lest you think Scoota was maybe some kind of lovable outlaw, some latter-day Billy the Kid or something we kindly invite you to pull your head out of your ass. Billy the Kid was certainly an awful person to be around, just like our neighbors have been and just like we imagine Scoota himself probably was. He wasn’t selling your cousin heroin or beating up your sister or waving his gun at you, but if it had been you you might feel differently about it, no?

    …

    There’s a wide gulf in Baltimore between people’s words and actions. That much is true of everyone; black and white, rich and poor. In the social media age everyone is hard at work spinning their own narrative every hour of every day but little of it has anything to do with the truth. In the Sun article about the speaking tour the author says Scoota and Moose ‘acknowledge an imperfect route’ to whatever ‘success’ they had achieved. Beg your pardon? What does that mean, exactly? An imperfect route? It means they were terrorizing their fucking neighborhoods and were dealing large quantities of narcotics. That’s not ‘an imperfect route’ it’s a goddamned life of crime. What’s more, it’s not clear that either Scoota or Moose have achieved real success by any measure. As far as we know they were self-releasing music, not exactly the fast lane on the road to riches. A little radio airplay in your hometown market and an Instagram of you with two or three actually famous rappers doesn’t amount to much in the great scheme of things.

    …

    But if you really want to know why the police came ready for trouble it’s because the likelihood of trouble starting was high. Grief does not preclude violence. After all, it was less than a month ago a West Baltimore man shot his father in a church at his own brother’s funeral. To assert that there were no drug dealers, no gang members, and no armed people in that crowd is either disingenuous or foolish. The police know, and the whole city should know that it only takes one half-assed gangster goddamned fool like Meech to turn up in a highly volatile crowd, discharge a gun, and cause utter chaos.

    …

    There are at least three official funeral related events scheduled to take place soon. All of them represent a volatile combination of grief, pain, hatred, resentment, ignorance and anger which could, if not very carefully managed, boil over into further chaos.

    Maybe you think criminal behavior is “normal” for Baltimore, or somehow OK for “those people.” You know, who are you to judge? Well, shame on you. Talk about the bigotry of low expectations! Criminal behavior is not normal; it’s not good. Not even — especially even –in Baltimore City. I say this in particular to my white liberal readers who don’t know Baltimore and also to many of the journalists who just learned of this guy and managed to scratch off a quick sob story in his honor.

    You think it’s cool other people, poor black boys and girls in Baltimore are being told to emulate Lor Scoota as some noble role model? Are you out of your mind? “We selling scramble coke and smack (X7), keep them junkies coming back.” This is the city of Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes, Vivien Thomas, Frederick Douglass, Cab Calloway, David Hasselhoff, and ten of thousands of regular people who have wage-paying jobs. They are the city’s role models.

  • All in the Family (II): Another Nexus of Baltimore Violence

    All in the Family (II): Another Nexus of Baltimore Violence

    Forgive me for speaking ill of the dead, as I did a few days ago. But today the Baltimore Sun has a feature about a man who has had two sons murdered. Tragic. It really is. Nobody should have to deal with one child murdered, much less two.

    But being cynical and a former Baltimore cop, I’m thinking maybe this is a case of, “you play the game, you take your chances.” Zeus does not throw random thunderbolts. Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. You get the idea? Did they “have it coming?”

    But read Colin Campbell’s sob story. These kids are presented as nothing but lost angels:

    “He was my best friend,” said [father] Nedrick Johnson, 38.

    The Johnson brothers played pickup sports and rode dirt bikes since they were 5 or 6 years old, their father said. “They used to sneak them out of the house and everything,” he said.

    Both were athletic: Darrian played quarterback, and Darrius power lifted competitively, he said. Darrius shot pool, could do a flip off a wall with a running start, and would sometimes ride his dirt bike with one hand — or none.

    …

    Nedrick Johnson scrolled through photos of his sons on his cellphone: standing in front of the Christmas tree, sitting together at a family get-together, diving into a pool in tandem, popping wheelies on their dirt bikes.

    …

    Darrian was caring, helpful, loyal, supportive and fiercely protective, his friends said.

    …

    “He was the type to call you out of the blue,” she said. “‘You good?’ ‘I’m just checking on you.’ ‘You need anything?’”

    …

    Homes said Darrian was a great cook and a lifelong friend.

    “He lived his life,” he said. “No matter if he died young, he lived his life to the fullest.”

    All that and a “great cook”? My God! Norman Rockwell couldn’t present such a dreamy All-American Family.

    But it made my Spidey-Sense tingle. Maybe you shouldn’t be “living life to the fullest” when you’re 19 years old. When I was 19 I was studying in college and waiting tables. But my first warning sign was “popping wheelies on their bikes.” Might seem wholesome to you. I love bicycles! Do you picture something like this?

    (This guy is not a Johnson brother)

    But in Baltimore we know what “dirt bike” means. (In a tweet, Colin confirmed “motor”.) “Dirt bikes” are horrible for quality-of-life. And they kill people (eight between 1997 and 2000, as I have in my notes, but more since. Update: this (dirt bike seriously hurts pedestrian, runs) and this (car hits dirtbike, driven get beaten), and even this. But by some bleeding-heart narrative I don’t understand, riding illegally and dangerously is just kids expressing themselves, even part of an uprising against racist cops.

    I respectfully beg to differ.

    First of all, good parents don’t let their under-10 kids “sneak out” with any bike, much less a motor bike. “Oh, that Junior. You turn your head for a second and next you know he’s doing wheelies on North Avenue!” Imagine the flack you’d get if you simply let your kid ride a bicycle without a helmet! You somehow it’s OK for other children — poor black kids in Baltimore — to do no-hand tricks on motorbikes while going the wrong way in traffic?!

    And, get this — pay attention because this is important — Baltimore police officers have gotten in trouble for trying to stop 7-year-olds from riding motorized ATVs in the streets. Why? I don’t know, but I suspect because when people read, “police removed a 7-year-old from his bike and detained his mom,” they’re thinking the kind of bike with cards in the spokes, so the cops must be assholes. It lead to media and public outrage against the police. And also a multi-year lawsuit from the boy’s mother (really from a lawyer who thought he could get a cut of the city payout.) The city actually fought the case and won.

    [Update: That kid on a bike story got mentioned in the DOJ’s 2016 report on the Baltimore Police Department as an example of how systemic problems are. No, not in Baltimore. But in the BPD. It makes no sense.]

    Here’s what I found from a brief search of Maryland’s online criminal records.

    Darrius Johnson — the brother killed in a double-shooting in 2015 — was born in October 1995 and had a moderate criminal record: assault, trespass, escape, burglary, assault, and trespass on school grounds. But keep in mind this record only covers the last two years of his life. Victims may beg to differ, but crimes don’t officially count until you’re an adult. (And there’s even a movement to raise the age.)

    Darrius’s brother, the one just killed, Darrian “Doddy” Johnson, seems to have stayed on the good side of the law with no criminal record. [Update: I originally posted incorrect information here that listed a Darrian Johnson with a different DOB and address. This was kindly corrected by a commenter. Corrections are always welcome.]

    But the real criminal seems to be their father. He’s no father of the year. For starters there’s the murder charge he faced when he was 15! (The disposition of the murder charge isn’t clear — hey, maybe he didn’t do it — but I suspect that when the case was booted up to circuit court, he got charged as a juvenile and the records were sealed.) There’s a first-degree rape charge at 18 (got null prossed, as ineffective prosecution could be seen as form of ghetto criminal entitlement). (There’s also the issue of some fraud case with the State Employees Credit Union that he lost for $34,000 plus court fees.)

    And then there’s the usual mélange of battery, assault, drugs possession with intent, more assault, drug dealing, more drugs, handgun violations, more drug dealings, assault, more handguns and drugs (not marijuana), armed robbery, and another handgun violation.

    The three sons mentions in the article may just be the kids he willingly took responsibility for. Paternity suits indicate at least two other sons (including a Nedrick Jr. already been convicted of a handgun violation). In fact, best I can tell (I may be wrong) Senior had three sons in two years! [Update: originally I had the time frame wrong.]

    Reading a fluff pieces like this in the papers, you might begin understand why cops hate “the media.” Neighbors call 911 and complain about shitty and violent public drug dealing neighbors over the years and over the generations. Police respond day after day after day to the crimes of this family. We pay and expect police to deal with the Johnsons.

    Let me say the taboo: Nedrick is a bad father and perhaps even a bad person. There. I’ve said it so cops don’t have to.

    Like the Antonios [sic] Addison and the Johnsons, some individual families are personally responsible for a disproportionate amount of violence and pain in Baltimore. Individual people on individual blocks actually are the problem. This isn’t some abstract theory of crime. This really is about “these people” not in the abstract offensive sense but in the literal sense of these people with these names who live in this house and commit these crimes.

    Police have to deal with the micro problems, the individuals, the Addisons and the Johnsons. Police don’t deal with the macro issues of social justice. And since nobody else (government, church, school, welfare, prosecutors) seems to be able to deal with these problems, we pay and pray that police do. And then if and when something goes wrong, we put the police on trial? I doesn’t make sense.

    Does this matter? I think it does. Because when you read about a poor father with two murdered sons, you may think think he deserves your sympathy. Hell, maybe he does. Like, despite all the father’s efforts, the mean streets of Baltimore done reached out and grabbed his children. But keep in mind it’s this very man that make the streets of Baltimore so mean.

    Who do you think shoots and kills and assaults people every year? The same criminals who sue police departments. Freddie Gray’s death was tragic; it may even be criminal, but that doesn’t mean he’s a role model on par with Martin Luther King, Jr. Keith Davis Jr. is an armed criminal who shot at and was shot by police. Even the out-to-prosecute-cops State’s Attorney agreed. That should be the end of the story. But it’s not.

    False narratives matter because we’re not being honest. When we portray criminals as innocent victims and give violent criminals the moral high ground, we perpetuate the violence.

  • All in the Family

    Here’s another one for the record books.

    This isn’t the first time somebody has been shot at a funeral. Kevin Rector and Justin George of the Sun observe, “Gunfire has marred other services in recent years to mourn deceased victims of violence in Baltimore.”

    And this is probably not even the first time a father has been shot at his son’s funeral. Gosh, you might be thinking, what could possibly be worse?

    Well… how about being shot at your son’s funeral by your own son, the deceased brother.

    Antonio Addison was killed on May 25 in West Baltimore (less than a mile from where Freddie Gray was arrested). And today, at Antonio’s funeral, Antonio’s father was shot by his own son. Yes, Antonio’s brother done shot their pa.

    Police said the older Addison and his father got into an argument over an obituary written by a family member for the younger Addison brother. The older brother’s name was omitted, his grandfather, Charles Addison told The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday.

    Classy. (Update: Though I bet there’s more to the story, maybe this is what happens when everybody in the family has the same name.)

    Police spokesman T.J. Smith said called this, an “open and shut” case. He added:

    I can’t even begin to explain and categorize how ridiculous some of the stuff that we have to respond to is. And this certainly underscores that.

    Call me judgemental, but I’m going to go out on limb and say this behavior is wrong. I mention this no-brainer because I can hear cops — white and black alike — say, “something is fucked up with these people.” And then I can hear tender outsiders gasping in a politically correct way, saying, “I can’t believe they just said ‘these people’!” So people don’t say anything and violence continues.

    There are these people — not all of any group, race, or neighborhood — who choose to do dumb violent shit. And cops (and nurses and teachers and paramedics) have to deal with these people every day. Really, what else can you say about a family that shoots each other at a funeral? Go ahead: blame racism, poverty, unemployment, lead, under-education. Sure, those all matter. But no, none of those actually makes you bring a gun to your brother’s funeral and shoot your father.

    A lot of people somehow manage to grow up with less than nothing — on the short end of the stick, without a full deck of cards, holding an empty bucket that leaks, with nothing put a broken spork in their mouth — and still don’t shoot anybody, much less their father. See, this is the culture/pathology issue that is all but taboo to bring up in polite society. But if we don’t consider culture and the inter-generational transmission of violence as a negative force, we cede this discussion to right-wing kooks and racists. I don’t know what the answer is, but ignoring bad culture won’t make it go away.

    [This may be as good as killing your brother over a Turkey drumstick on Thanksgiving.]

    Update: Antonio Addison Sr, the shot father (DOB 2/1969), has 33 cases in his rap sheeting including: attempted murder, kidnapping, murder, drug dealing, armed robbery, handgun.

    Antonio Addison Jr (DOB 12/1990) presumably Antonio’s brother and the shooter (you read it here first) of Antonio Sr, 23 cases: Assault, carjacking, drug dealing, resisting arrest.

    Antonio Deandre Addison III (DOB 7/1993), presumably the deceased: 26(!) traffic violations in two years, domestic violence, child support, drug dealing, child support, drug dealing, drug dealing, and — this is my favorite — spitting in a public place. That’s the kind of ticket I might give to a drug dealer in order to legally arrest him for being an asshole. The case was dismissed.

    And collectively, with no listed date of birth, there are another 25 or so cases against one of these Antonio Addisons. This is a family of violent drug dealing criminals.

    So when the Addisons are out on the corner doing their thing, what exactly do you want police to do? And when somebody runs from their drug corner, should police just let them be? And when the press interviews one of these guys (because when the press goes slumming and looks for people to say something about Freddie Grayand police, these are the people you’ll find hanging out) why in the world would you believe what they have to say?

    Maybe it’s more productive to ask how we can possibly help the next generation. But if you were a teacher, would you want 6-year-old Antonio Addison IV in your class?

    [Update: my next “all in the family” installment.]

  • How people get killed

    Murders are usually thought of in the abstract. People “get killed.” Homicides “rates” go up or down. But to each killing, there’s a person who kills and a person killed. This isn’t really understood by those who don’t live or work in high crime areas. (Yes, while murder can happen anywhere… no, murder actually doesn’t happen everywhere).

    Not to glorify snuff films — because, spoiler alert, this guy gets killed [update: or maybe just critically wounded] — but I think it’s important to understand the individual nature or homicides when talking about crime and police.

    From the Daily News:

    Police statistics said that as of Wednesday morning there had been 727 people shot and 135 homicides so far this year in the city of Chicago.

    However, the Chicago Tribune reported at 9 p.m. that nine more people had been shot during the course of the day, including a 23-year-old man and a 43-year-old woman, who were both killed.

    The incident is the latest in the city’s most violent start to a year since 1999.

    Earlier this week a young woman named Camiella Williams, 28, told The Trace that she has lost 23 loved ones to shootings, and is now an anti-gun violence advocate.

    As the story was being edited another one of her friends, 27-year-old Cordero Mosley, was shot six times and died.

  • I wanna be a cowboy…

    In some ways this is just another shooting in the hood.

    But I post it because, well, look at her Jessie getup!

    Also, she packs her gun in her panties.

    And there’s high quality video.

    Does there have to be more?

    I wanna be a cowboy… and she can my cowgirl.

    This is the violence problem in America. Have an argument? Upset? Feel bad? Get a gun, holster it in your undies, and then use as needed at the gas station.

    On the plus side, no police officer got in trouble for confronting, frisking, or even having to shoot this juvenile.

    I’m assuming she’s just a “girl” since her name wasn’t released. I also feel sorry for any youngsters who watched this and say, “That’s mom!”

    [Also, notice the cross around her neck. Here’s yet another example of radical Christian terrorism. And yet nobody but me has noticed this clear sign of Christian jihad.]

  • A Cloak of Silence After a South Bronx Killing

    A Cloak of Silence After a South Bronx Killing

    Benjamin Mueller and Al Baker in the New York Times describe one homicide in the Bronx. “To understand why killings persist in an era of historically low crime, The New York Times is reporting this year on each murder in the 40th Precinct.” This is the kind of in-depth story that informs.

    If we’re going to improve things, where do we start? Sure, the Collazos need help. But then so do my students who grow up as his neighbors. While Fredo is selling drugs and smoking weed in the lobby — and non-residents complain that “non-violent drug offenders” like Fredo are being harassed by police — my students have to get by him and his crew to get to my class. Some people manage to make better life decisions and finish high school and get jobs and graduate college and get better jobs. In a world of limited resources, who do we help? And how many red flags do there need to be?

    A “broken window” in action. Cause nothing says respect to your neighbors like “RIP Fredo” burned into the ceiling of the hallway.

    Here’s a name and a face and a life. 20-year-old Freddy Collazo:

    Mr. Collazo’s father, who was addicted to heroin, served nearly two years in state prison for drug sales. His parents separated when he was in his early teens.

    …

    Mr. Collazo’s … slashing in May 2012; his wounds — including cuts to his head, ear, left elbow and right middle finger — were recorded by the police, despite his refusing to talk to officers at a hospital.

    …

    He got a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver after the 2012 slashing — a requisite precaution, friends and relatives said.

    …

    But Mr. Collazo was coy, even with close friends, about why people wanted to hurt him. When Ms. Soto asked how she could help, her son acknowledged being in trouble but insisted, “No questions.”

    When he was sent to jail on Rikers Island, his father, whose name is also Alfredo Collazo, was already there, having been locked up four days earlier on drug charges.

    …

    He had expensive tastes in clothes, favoring name-brand polo shirts.

    He popped prescription pills, including Percocet, smoked marijuana in the lobby of his apartment building and sold drugs, sometimes under the banner of Forest Over Everything but just as often on his own.

    …

    Mr. Collazo dropped out of Herbert H. Lehman High School in the 11th grade.

    …

    Mr. Collazo was arrested again in April 2014, this time for marijuana, but he only had to pay a fine. He walked around as if he were invincible, friends said, relying on his crew for protection as his street feuds piled up.

    His ability to keep avoiding prison time created suspicions among his crew.

    Last May, Mr. Collazo entered a residential drug-treatment program in Brooklyn.

    His anxiety ran so deep that Mr. Collazo once badgered a new student who he thought had been looking at him too much.

    …

    In late February a hooded gunman crept up behind Mr. Collazo. The first bullet severed Mr. Collazo’s spine and blew through his heart, killing him before he hit the pavement. His cousin, Luis Cruz, ran.

    Then the gunman stood over Mr. Collazo, 58 days past his 20th birthday, and with a .45-caliber pistol pumped at least six more bullets into his body, leaving a total of 10 entry and exit wounds.

    Sgt. Michael J. LoPuzzo, the commander of the 40th Precinct detective squad, said Mr. Collazo was “assassinated.”

    But Mr. Cruz has told Mr. Collazo’s mother that he will not say who the killer is.

    “I told him, ‘Please, you was there, go to the cops and tell them what you know,’” Mr. Collazo’s mother, Glenda Lee Soto, said. “He told me he’s not going to do it. He’s not going to go down for a snitch. He’s not going to rat nobody.”

    Chief Boyce said people’s reluctance to speak with investigators “doesn’t mean we stop — it just means our task is all the more difficult.”

    …

    At his funeral the next Sunday, two young men were handcuffed by the police as they entered the funeral home parking lot; the police said they had arrested one person, for having stolen license plates.

    …

    Friends scrawled tributes on the wall — “F.O.E.,” “For you we gon bang bang,” “Ima put them under dirt” — and raised their lighters to the ceiling to burn “RIP FREDO” into the beige paint.

    The lobby became choked with marijuana smoke. Mr. Collazo’s raps blared from his friends’ cellphones and echoed off the walls. The group scattered when two officers arrived, responding to a neighbor’s complaint.

    But slowly they returned.

    And some people? Out of all this? Of all they could criticize? They would find fault with police for maintaining order in the lobby of a public housing building. Nothing but police harassing innocent children of color as they mourn the untimely death of their friend.

  • Meanwhile, roughly 1 in every 250 young black men was shot in Eastern District. Last month!

    Meanwhile, roughly 1 in every 250 young black men was shot in Eastern District. Last month!

    Maybe you were too busy blocking traffic into the city to notice, but this past weekend 32 people were shot in Baltimore. Nine were killed.

    (as usual, click to embiggen)

    This past weekend. In Charm City. With just over 620,000 people.

    Meanwhile, from April 25 to May 23, this past month, 122 people were shot or killed in Mobtown. Last year the comparable figure was 52.

    [During these same 28 days, Part One reported crimes in the Land of Pit Beef did not increase. Domestics (again, as reported to police) did not increase.]

    Where are these shootings happening? The Central District was basically steady. In the Northern District, shootings were actually down to two, from four. Shootings in the Southeast did increase, but just to eight. Not much up in the Southwest.

    The Northwestern District? Shootings were up to 13 in the past 28 days. That’s compared to 1 last year.

    The Wild West? There were 33 shootings this year (compared to 10 last year). I don’t know what the population of the Western is, but it’s probably even smaller than the Eastern.

    In my beloved “Historic” Eastern District? 22 shootings and homicides in 28 days. Last year there were 7. (For what it’s worth, homicides in the Eastern actually were lower than last year, 3 versus 4!)

    Keep in mind that these victims (and shooters) come mostly from the population of 15- to 35- year-old black men.

    The actual population of 15- to 35-year-old black men in the Eastern District is likely less than 5,000 people. (Source: See page 219 of Cop in the Hood).

    Now this is just one month, mind you. Twenty-eight days. And we’re talking about a “Formstone figure” (OK, I just made that one up) of roughly 1 out of every 250 young black men being shot. In one month! Chew on that bony Lake Trout for a while. But this ain’t no bull and oyster roast.

    I don’t know what else to say. Go ahead, if your world-view inclines you thusly, go ahead, hon, and see police as the biggest problem facing young black men in the land of Pleasant Living. And Boh, I’m not saying police are without blame. But seriously, this is about priorities. If you think police are the biggest problem facing young black men in urban America… I don’t know what else to say.

    [Maybe I did something wrong with my math? Let me know.]

  • Murder in Baltimore

    With murdered doubled post-riot, you’d think more people would care. I don’t mean people in high-crime neighborhoods in Baltimore, they do care. It’s all those other people who so righteously saw police as the biggest problem in the hood. Where are they, now that the murder rate has doubled?

    Oh, and how did that “gang truce” work out? Well that hasn’t worked out so well. Legitimizing and empowering gangs is not the answer. It’s the Cloud Cuckoo Land idea, embraced by too many, that crime prevention can be purely collaborative and never confrontational. It’s also a strangely insulting concept, especially when it comes from outside white liberals, that criminals somehow represent the community more than the police.

    Yes, police can and should be more polite in their job. There’s no reason to be an asshole on the job (which is not to say that some people sometimes don’t need to get told off sometimes). But being a dick is not only wrong, it’s bad policing. It makes the job tougher for all police. Still, more polite and empathetic and understanding police — which can make non-criminals less anti-police (a more important than many cops want to admit) — will not stop criminals from killing each other.

    I think a lot of this comes down to the old sociology fallacies that A) police don’t deserve credit for preventing crime, B) culture doesn’t matter, and C) the only real causes of crime and what is perceived as bad culture are inequality, racism, and lack of opportunity. But the “root causes” did not magically change on April 27, when Baltimore burned.

    After the riots and horrible leadership from Baltimore’s mayor and police commissioner, proactive police patrol all but stopped. Why? Because all police work has the risk of going south. There’s long been the maxim in policing, “if you don’t work you can’t get in trouble.” I’m not a big fan of the thin-blue-line trope, and yet here you have a pretty clear cut case where police have done less and criminals have done more.

    Racism in America and violence in America are two separate problems. To walk up to an enemy and pull a trigger is something some people choose to do and others do not. Somehow, lots of poor people — even in Baltimore — manage to live decent and even joyous lives without killing somebody. Calling out racism and racists — a noble calling — isn’t going to save one black life in Baltimore. To see police as some kind of nexus between racism and violence is a tragic mistake. Baltimoreans aren’t being killed by racists. They’re being killed by each other (Freddie Gray being a notable exception).

    In parts of Baltimore we pay police to deal with those people who think murder is an acceptable problem-solving methods. Police deal with these criminals daily because these criminals are hanging out on the corner all day dealing drugs. Some neighbors have the gumption to not like this. So they call the police. And in come the police to clear the corner. And that’s what real police do.

  • Don’t believe the hype

    Baltimore has 99 problems… gangs aren’t really one. At least not on list of top 5. Batts seems a bit obsessed with them. That’s West Coast bullshit.

    An article by Leon Neyfakh in Slate.