In late May Rolling Stone had a poorly conceived article about Baltimore police and riots. On May 30th I wrote this letter to the editor: I applaud Matt Taibbi (“Why Baltimore Blew Up”) for keeping the focus on Baltimore after the nation’s attention seems to have shifted elsewhere. But Taibbi seems more intent on attacking…
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300 Men marched against violence In Baltimore. I guess since was no looting or violence associated with the march, it did not make national news. But apparently the criminals weren’t listening. “At least 21 people were shot since Friday,” reports the Sun. To put it in perspective, as Justin Fenton did, that rate of violence…
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Great piece by Simone Weichselbaum in the Marshall Project about Batts and his problems in Baltimore. Good piece in Vice about the problem of “superstar” police chiefs.
Total arrests per day are in orange. Firearms crimes per day are the lower lines, in blue. (Click to embiggen) The bottom axis represents the numbered day of year. 1 is Jan 1. 178 is June 27th. The riot was on April 27, day 117. This was partly inspired by a frustrating discussion on the…
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This piece by Tim Kreider is pretty fabulous. It includes John Waters’ great line: “NYC is full of normal people who think they’re crazy; Baltimore is full of crazy people who think they’re normal.” And “Bananas & hardware for sale at the bar” actually only narrows things down to a half-dozen locations. I still use…
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That’s from the Sun. The FOP riot report is good. Well done. And based on everything I’ve heard from police officers, true. It’s proofread and a surprisingly well put together package (the whole “issue” and “recommendation” and “references” thing). Keep in mind this is coming from a local FOP chapter that misspelled my name on…
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The next Baltimore police commissioner really needs to be home-grown. Why not Lt. Col. Melvin Russell?
“Conservator of the peace,” you say. I was skeptical about how/if Mayor Rawlings-Blake could legally declare a curfew in Baltimore. Turns out she can: Circuit Judge Paul Alpert determined that a curfew was within Rawlings-Blake’s powers as a “conservator of the peace.” The powers of that title are not clearly defined in the city charter…
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Remember when Batts and the mayor said nobody ever told the cops to “stand down” during the riots? Well people who were there know they were lying. Well here is at least one order telling officer not to engage.
The BBC has a story about Michael Wood and his reporting of police wrong doing. I still don’t doubt the truth of what he says he say and participated in. That’s important. As to his character or motives, nobody outside of policing really gives a damn what they are or if Wood was a good…
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