Tag: riots

St. Louis and the acquital of Officer Stockley

So somehow perhaps I thought doing a podcast would be less time consuming or easier than writing a blog post? No. Hell, no. Do you know what editing entails? Even light audio editing? But it’s different. Kind of fun. What the hell. I hope it’s educational (and hopefully also entertaining). Anyway, here’s Nick Selby and…
Read more

The Consequences of Bad Leadership: the Baltimore Riots of 2015

Last postI talked about what didn’t cause the 2015 riots in Baltimore. Well, what did? Macro theory too often assumes happenings and history are per-ordained, that leadership decisions don’t have consequences, and that individuals have no free will. But what if the buses kept running? What if police continued to disperse crowds in the street…
Read more

Beware of the Risen People

The ATF released a version of this photo taken during the April 27 riots. The guy (“repeatedly captured in photographs and other images on the day of the rioting”) was later identified as Donta Betts: He confessed to creating the explosion to ward off the cops “so people could finish … stealing whatever they was…
Read more

The “Gray Effect”

Stephen Morgan, my grad-school colleague, released his Baltimore report (co-authored with Joel Pally) that looks at crime and arrests pre- and post-riot. [The Harvard sociology cohort of 1995 always turned to Morgan as the quant guy when we needed help with stats class, which was often. So rather than blame my own limitations and laziness,…
Read more

The Freddie Gray investigation

Haven’t read this yet, but looks interesting. By Justin George in the Baltimore Sun: In the days following Freddie Gray’s death, The Baltimore Sun had exclusive access to police investigators as they gathered evidence, debated legal issues and weathered public pressure.

Murder in Baltimore Post Riot

Here’s the latest in terms of Baltimore homicides, pre and post riot. The downward slope is a slight silver lining in a homicide rate the doubled overnight.

“He shouldn’t be up there with Martin Luther King”

No, Freddie Gray should not be. What a disgrace to MLK, Jr. I hate to paraphrase The Trump, but just because you are killed or die in police custody does not make you a hero. But such is politics in Baltimore. When these officers look at this larger-than-life mural with Gray in the center, they…
Read more

Meanwhile, “discovery” back in Baltimore

A bunch of people are getting shot. Including kids. An arrest was made. But more out of the ordinary is this by Keven Rector in the Sun: Attorneys for six Baltimore police officers charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray said in a court filing Thursday that prosecutors either failed to turn over…
Read more

Cue happy riot montage scene!

Apparently — and I didn’t know this — Baltimore is actually a role model for other cities in how to control civil unrest. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake didn’t exactly jump the shark right here. She jumped the shark a long time ago. But this is becoming insane. She actual said this: And while you say…
Read more

Got Milk

A unique form of assaulting a police officer. From the New York Times. That’s in Brussels … Belgium … between France and the Netherlands.