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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Revisiting Baltimore (With Addendum)

The killings in Baltimore continue — according to some recent reports, at an accelerated rate since Freddie Gray's death and subsequent riots; see Baltimore Police Commissioner: Police Having Trouble Policing, Being Surrounded At Every Call.

Who is so foolish as to believe that indicting six Baltimore police officers for the death of Freddie Gray will make a substantial difference in what Baltimore has become? May 2015 is the deadliest month Baltimore has seen in more than 15 years. More than two dozen shootings over the holiday weekend alone....

Graphic by at Denise Lu @ the Washington Post

From this Washington Post article (May 17, 2015):
After rioters burned Baltimore, killings pile up largely under the radar

BALTIMORE — Andre Hunt counseled troubled kids through the Boys and Girls Club. He volunteered at the local NAACP chapter. A barber, he befriended the son of an assistant high school principal, swapping tales of football and life while the boy grew into adulthood under the clips of his shears.

“He was like a big brother to my son,” the mother, Karima Carrington, said of her trips to Cut Masters on Liberty Heights Ave­nue.

The 28-year-old Hunt was lured out of the barbershop, according to his attorney, and shot in the back of the head on the afternoon of April 29. He was among more than 30 people slain in Baltimore in 30 days, an alarming number of killings and part of an undercurrent of violence here.

Although riots and protests after the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured in police custody, brought national attention to the city, the slayings have attracted little notice.

[...]

From mid-April to mid-May, 31 people were killed, and 39 others were wounded by gunfire. Twice, 10 people were shot on a single day. As of Friday, the deadly burst has pushed the city’s homicide count to 91, 21 above last year at the same time. In the District, 40 people had been slain as of Friday, not including four people found dead Thursday in cases police said are being investigated as homicides but are awaiting a ruling by the medical examiner.

Baltimore has historically been a violent city, earning a moniker of “Mob Town” during gang riots of the 1850s. Homicides topped 300 for 10 consecutive years in the 1990s. Although the annual figure has fallen to the low 200s, the city remains among the top tier in per capita murders, ranking fifth in 2013, behind Detroit, New Orleans, Newark and St. Louis....
I encourage you to read the entire May 17, 2015 article, copied and pasted below the fold for those of you who don't have subscriptions to the Washington Post.

Considering the above, what do you specifically propose as feasible solutions to the myriad problems of Baltimore?

MUST-READ ADDENDUM: Baltimore residents fearful amid rash of homicides (AP on May 28, 2015).

Aforementioned full article from the Washington Post:
After rioters burned Baltimore, killings pile up largely under the radar

BALTIMORE — Andre Hunt counseled troubled kids through the Boys and Girls Club. He volunteered at the local NAACP chapter. A barber, he befriended the son of an assistant high school principal, swapping tales of football and life while the boy grew into adulthood under the clips of his shears.

“He was like a big brother to my son,” the mother, Karima Carrington, said of her trips to Cut Masters on Liberty Heights Ave­nue.

The 28-year-old Hunt was lured out of the barbershop, according to his attorney, and shot in the back of the head on the afternoon of April 29. He was among more than 30 people slain in Baltimore in 30 days, an alarming number of killings and part of an undercurrent of violence here.

Although riots and protests after the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured in police custody, brought national attention to the city, the slayings have attracted little notice. They come as Baltimore works to recover from the unrest, with a police force demoralized by the arrests of six of its members — three of whom face murder or manslaughter charges in Gray’s death — and under the scrutiny of the Justice Department.

The Rev. Jamal H. Bryant, pastor of the Empowerment Temple and a local activist, said city residents have “almost been anesthetized” to the killings. “In any other community, these numbers would be jaw-dropping.”

A month before Gray’s death, Bryant joined Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) at a summit to urge black men to help stop black-on-black killings. African Americans comprised 211 of Baltimore’s 216 homicide victims in 2014. Now Bryant, who eulogized Gray at his funeral, believes in “enlarging the narrative beyond Freddie Gray” to harness the anger and renew the focus on curbing violence.

“The young people are engaged,” the pastor said. “Now there has to be a clear conversation on the contributing factors to murder — lack of jobs, lack of opportunity, hopelessness. All have contributed to the down­sizing of life. . . . Young people don’t fear death. They’ve almost embraced it as part of life in Baltimore.”

Hunt’s killing remains unsolved. His attorney describes it as a daylight execution along the dilapidated commercial strip a little more than a mile from where the riots first erupted at Mondawmin Mall. Hunt’s friends believe the barber’s death is linked to his former position as a middleman in this city’s lucrative heroin trade. He was shot a month after he was sentenced to three years in federal prison for distributing drugs in Gray’s neighborhood, and 10 days before his attorney said he planned to report to serve his term.

Hunt’s roles as youth mentor, legitimate wage earner and drug dealer are part of the dysfunction and paradox of surviving in troubled neighborhoods, where narcotics are an integral part of commerce and as common as the vacant rowhouses that dominate the landscape. Hunt bought heroin wholesale and sold to street-level pushers working West Baltimore’s Gilmor Homes and its isolated courtyards between strips of drab public housing. This is the part of the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood where Gray grew up and where he was arrested before he died April 19, after having been shackled and put without a buckled seat belt in the back of a police van.

Upsurge in homicides

The protests and riots that roiled this city in the aftermath of Gray’s death quieted after the police officers were charged. But even as shops were looted and burned and 3,200 Maryland National Guard troops came to restore order, another type of violence was consuming Baltimore.

From mid-April to mid-May, 31 people were killed, and 39 others were wounded by gunfire. Twice, 10 people were shot on a single day. As of Friday, the deadly burst has pushed the city’s homicide count to 91, 21 above last year at the same time. In the District, 40 people had been slain as of Friday, not including four people found dead Thursday in cases police said are being investigated as homicides but are awaiting a ruling by the medical examiner.

Baltimore has historically been a violent city, earning a moniker of “Mob Town” during gang riots of the 1850s. Homicides topped 300 for 10 consecutive years in the 1990s. Although the annual figure has fallen to the low 200s, the city remains among the top tier in per capita murders, ranking fifth in 2013, behind Detroit, New Orleans, Newark and St. Louis.

The past few weeks have been rough on rank-and-file cops who, according to their union representatives, feel distrusted by the citizenry, vilified by the media and alienated by prosecutors. “Officers are coming up to me and saying, ‘I’m afraid to do my job,’ ” said Lt. Kenneth Butler, a 29-year veteran and president of a group for black officers. He said officers, black and white, are “equally upset, their morale is low.”

Lt. Victor Gearhart, with 33 years of experience, said officers are second-guessing themselves, tamping down aggressive policing. “Now they have to think, ‘What happens if this turns bad? What is going to happen to me?’ ”

During the rioting and protests, Baltimore police disclosed the killings on the department’s Twitter feed amid tallies of looting, fires and rock throwing. But shootings did not become a topic except when police assured they were not linked to the unrest. The day after the rioting began, and as the National Guard deployed, the police commissioner declared on TV: “The citizens are safe. The city is stable.”

Andre Hunt was killed the next afternoon.

Intersecting lives

Hunt was trying to escape the drug life.

He graduated in 2004 from a high school in Milford Mill, a suburb of Baltimore. He got his barber’s license and started cutting hair. He had two cousins in the drug trade, and his attorney, Richard C.B. Woods, blames them for luring him into illicit dealing.

One cousin, Sean Wilson, 46, was sentenced in February to 11 years in federal prison for working with a heroin dealer in New Orleans. When police raided his house in suburban Baltimore, they found 10 kilograms of heroin and $464,000 in cash. An additional $89,000 was found stuffed into the pipes of a Ford D-250 pickup.

This was the atmosphere in which Hunt found himself, Woods said, and, starting in 2012, he joined with another cousin to sell heroin. Hunt’s nickname was “Cousin,” due to the family connections that put him in easy reach of large amounts of drugs. He worked out of a stash house in Reservoir Hill, a neighborhood just above the intersection of Pennsylvania and North avenues that was the epicenter of the riots.

In his plea agreement in federal court, Hunt admitted they poured drugs into Gilmor Homes. Business was brisk. In one car stop of Hunt, police reported finding 50,000 empty yellow zip-top bags typically used to package drugs for streets sales. Inside the Reservoir Hill house, police found 1.6 kilograms of heroin and a .357 Magnum revolver.

Hunt and others were arrested in October 2013. He pleaded guilty in May 2014 but wasn’t sentenced until in March 17, 2015. A federal judge allowed him until May to surrender for prison.

But just two weeks after Hunt entered his guilty plea, Wilson, who had not yet been arrested, heard that his cousin was going away for just three years, while others got much more time, according to court filings. Wilson talked to his New Orleans supplier on a call bugged by the FBI.

“I don’t know how the [expletive] that happened,” Wilson said, according to a court affidavit. “I’m still trying to get to the bottom of it.”

The Maryland U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment. Woods said his client was spared a long prison term because he had no prior convictions and appeared to be trying to turn his life around.

“He was hard-working,” the lawyer said. “He mentored young people. That’s unusual. Most people in drug-distribution rings don’t care anything about anything but their money. He was a good young man who got roped into this.”

Karima Carrington, the assistant principal of the Academy for College and Career Exploration, a city high school, said she met Hunt a decade ago while he was cutting hair at Cut Masters.

She took her sons to his shop. The youngest was then 12. Hunt and the youth talked sports and jobs, and Hunt attended the boy’s football games. Carrington said of Hunt’s death: “Absolutely it had something to do with what he was doing on the street. No one would want to hurt him other than someone in that life.”

Carrington said that after Hunt was arrested, he confessed to her about selling drugs. “He was remorseful,” she said. “He was ashamed. He really was trying to get out of the life he had led.”

Tessa Hill-Aston, president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP, said Hunt volunteered at her office. “He was trying to change his life around,” she said, “and was looking forward to serving his sentence and starting over. I’m so sorry he didn’t have a chance to do that.”

Hill-Aston was talking on the phone with a reporter on a recent Monday afternoon. A friend had just called her from a doctor’s office in West Baltimore and told her she dived to the floor when three gunshots went off outside.

It was 1:30 in the afternoon, at a place called Walbrook Junction. Another man shot in the head. Another death.

Hours later would be a funeral for another man killed May 2, the last day of the curfew imposed during the rioting. He was the grandson of a founder of Bible Way Church, oldest son of the church’s former bishop, nephew of the bishop-designee.

The shootings and the burials continued their frenzied pace.

“It’s almost like there’s a war going on,” Hill-Aston said.

77 comments:

  1. Well Silverfiddle, you aren't the one who has to take a frisk without probable cause as a routune event in your neighborhood. You don't have to worry about a felony record because some stinking cop has to make his quota and busts you for a trace of marijuana.
    If you're really lucky you live in one of those "tough on crime" (dog whistle), "three strikes and you in for ever" crap holes.
    Why the fact that the murder rate is high in Baltimore is a indicator that cops should be allowed to roust you without probably cause and snap your spine is beyond me.

    But a lot of people are desperate. Our asinine drug laws block a lot of folks from jobs that are very scarce to begin with. Add a lack of low cost housing and even a right winger gets and idea why men aren't raising family.

    But those places don't bother me. I remember asking for directions at a McDonalds in East St. Louis one night. No problems. Wouldn't walk in with the camera. Some discretion is necessary but you don't need to be afraid of the dark.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Duck,
      Ahem.

      All the Memorial Day mayhem in Baltimore (and in Chicago and NYC, too, if I recall correctly) was black-on-black crime and had nothing to do with what you suggested: that the police were rousting these individuals without probable cause.

      PS: Did you even read the WaPo article cited in the blog post? There is more to what's going on than rousting people over marijuana use.

      Delete
    2. Can it, Ducky. That shtick is stale.

      The majority of people trapped in inner cities are good, honest people. The criminal element is a small percentage, but they throw all the weight, and the rest are trapped.

      NYPD coordinated their policing with citizens councils, mostly minorities from the neighborhoods they were policing, and there were news articles featuring those people begging Bolshevik Bill Deblastio not to end the program.

      Any time you give a person a uniform, badge and a gun, there is potential for abuse.

      The leftwing chose to be down with the criminal element back in the 60's (which shows the utter naive stupidity of guilty white latte liberals, since most minorities trapped in bad neighborhoods are not down the the criminals who destroy their quality of life), and city dwellers are reaping the fruits of leftwing progressivism.

      Live it, love it, learn it. Eat it until you choke on it. Sow bad seeds and you will reap rotten fruit.

      Delete
    3. "I remember asking for directions at a McDonalds in East St. Louis one night. No problems."

      I think that the future of many of our cities is on display there now. I knew a guy who was a cop there in the late 60s. Instead of patrolling with 2 officers they did it with 3. Two to respond and one to stay with the patrol car so as it wouldn't get stolen! " No problems" my @$$ !

      Delete
  2. SF,
    There are no solutions.

    That may well be the truth.

    What I'm wondering is this: Has any war-zone inner city ever been successfully turned around? If so, how?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just added this addendum to the body of the blog post:

    Baltimore residents fearful amid rash of homicides (AP on May 28, 2015).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, perhaps the rousting of pot argument has more merit than you're giving credit for. Using your very own line of resource, The Washington Post, I invite you to read "The Black/White Marijuana Arrest Gap in Nine Charts" written June 4, 2013. It shows that while black and whites are likely to use pot equally, blacks are in some cases, 10 times more likely to be arrested AND receive harsher penalties while what few arrested whites pretty much get a pass.

    I also invite you to review recent DOJ findings of Ferguson and other troubling cities. I understand and realize that for many of today's so-called conservatives, reading articles on such liberal sites as ThinkProgess are akin a vampire staring into a cross (it's just hard to find a credible link from Hannity or Moonbattery or even Fox News to link to) but there's an in-dept article "Racist as Hell: Inside St Louis Predatory Night Courts" that goes further in explaining what's going on.

    Are cops racist? While racism is and will always exist to some degree, the problem is more likely, as we've learned, they are unaccountable. They break the law and they walk. They are "friends of the court". They are friends with the prosecutors who depend on them to advance their careers.

    Today's social breakdown didn't result over night but rather over a period of time. The deck has always been stacked to some degree against minorities on many fronts. To better understand how we got to where we are today, perhaps the Rosewood FL massacre of Jan 1, 1923 demonstrates that a successful or prosperous black community, one that can function and grow on its own, simply won't be tolerated. And it isn't simply a black issue or an American issue as we can study the massacres Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Slocum, Texas, the December 29, 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, and the Ponce Massacre in Puerto Rico in 1937.

    Today's problems, I believe, are not new. I don't think there are more blacks are being shot 8 times in the back or being choked to death or beaten unmercifully or are seeing their playing children gunned down in the parks by policemen. I think that more are being exposed as everyone has a cell phone and security cameras are everywhere. It's like we're having a Rodney King trail almost weekly.

    It doesn't help matters when we have a plutocratic and social Darwinism SCOTUS that's rather minority unfriendly and turning back the progress of minority rights and advancement opportunities. It doesn't help that there's so much hatred of Barack Obama for no other reason than he's Barack Obama which amplifies the bigotry of many of today's so-called conservative.

    Ultimately, when you treat people like animals, they respond accordingly. And that response is used by the abusive party to justify the mistreatment. Case in point- early American Native Indians. White men took their land, raped their women, killed their young, burned their villages, broke treaty after treaty, and then labeled them as "savages". Again, read and study the Rosewood FL massacre. Look at the recent DOJ findings. Understand police immunity with the courts.

    If you prod a rodent into a corner with nowhere to go and continue to prod, the rodent will retaliate.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. RN,
      Using your own argument, specifically when you treat people like animals, they respond accordingly, also applies to the police officers. Go get a job in west Baltimore, then get back to us to report your findings.

      The drug problem in Baltimore is not marijuana use, but rather heroin and cocaine (both powder and rock) use.

      Are cops racist? While racism is and will always exist to some degree, the problem is more likely, as we've learned, they are unaccountable. They break the law and they walk. They are "friends of the court". They are friends with the prosecutors who depend on them to advance their careers.

      You failed to mention the revolving door of the court system in Baltimore: the offenders are back on the streets before the police officers have even completed the paperwork.

      PS: You brought up a lot of non-applicable "history" in your comment (Wounded Knee, Tulsa, etc.). Please stay on topic -- which is that of Baltimore and similar problems in other major U.S. cities today.

      Delete
    2. Erratum! I meant to address the above comment to "Ronald Ward." I don't have time to delete, then reproduce my comment. Deal with my mistake. Thank you.

      Delete
    3. Ronald Ward,
      blacks are in some cases, 10 times more likely to be arrested AND receive harsher penalties while what few arrested whites pretty much get a pass

      The same is true for whites who cannot afford big-bucks attorneys. It's not merely a matter of race when it comes to getting a high-powered attorney.

      Delete
    4. Yes, the courts discriminate against the poor, as do banks with predatory fees, as does much of today's system. The writing I referenced laid out an augment, with statistics, of how disproportionately blacks are subjected to arrest and harsher penalties than whites.

      Likewise, your above argument of police being treated as animals is not balanced. When anyone threatens, strikes, or shoots a policeman, they are, and should be, penalized accordingly. When policemen do this, not so much.

      My reference of history was to illustrate how we came to be where we are today, that today's problems are not new.

      Delete
    5. Ronald,
      When anyone threatens, strikes, or shoots a policeman, they are, and should be, penalized accordingly.

      Oh, really? Lately, those actions have been the justification for rioting and other mayhem (Ferguson, for example).

      The grievance industry -- yes, it is an industry under the banner of "social justice" -- is not helping the situation one little bit.

      People are individually responsible for their own actions, and dwelling upon previous injustices is detrimental to all (think of the Hatfields and the McCoys as an example with no racial overtones).

      Baltimore today is a more dangerous place than it was a few short months ago.

      Delete
    6. Your argument mirrors Sowell in the concept that blacks were doing just fine under Jim Crow laws and then came the evil liberals and ruined it for them.

      There are many culprits of today's social breakdown as I've laid out above. Arguments of "entitlements" may have merit to some extent and in some applications but rings hollow in the big picture.

      It's simply a rather sophomoric spin to take a swipe at the opposition party while evading an age old problem.

      Delete
    7. Sophomoric? Sowell never said "blacks were doing just fine under Jim Crow laws." Sloppy mischaracterizations harm your argument.

      Dr. Sowell lived under Jim Crow as a young black man. What he does is statistical comparisons, you know, science.

      The past is real, as is contemporary racism and police abuse. Still, you have failed to show a nexus between historical abuses and contemporary problems.

      I was in the military and I served with many people who escaped bad circumstances. It is not impossible.

      Delete
    8. Dr. Sowell said: "The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state". Words have meaning. I digress.

      Escaping bad circumstances is indeed possible and I'll concede the argument that ultimately, each is accountable for the path they take and where it leads.

      My original post lays out an argument that perhaps that path has blockades in it for a certain class of people, that they were never welcomed to take it to begin with.

      Cases like Rodney King, eight shots to the back, "fck your breath", spine snapping, and so on, on pretty much a daily basis, fuels the problem.

      And it doesn't help when it's filmed and obvious, that the law still walks, or that if it happened to not be filmed, as I think anyone of reasonable intellect would concur, that the cop would have never been charged. So my real argument is that while many of us are just now seeing it as a result of technology, ,many have seen and witnessed it for years. They've lived it, for a very very long time. The only thing new is the technical exposure.

      Again, the argument that racism or abuse that has lead to the problems in Baltimore et al is specious and inductive.


      Delete
    9. To be clear AOW @ 10:43AM, I'm not dwelling on previous injustices nor do I condone violence for those or present injustices.

      What I'm arguing is that the violence in Baltimore or Ferguson or other cities have been a long time coming. The reason that it has escalated recently is due to technology openly exposing it yet the blatant disregard of evidence along with the obvious intentions of prosecutors to "protect their own".

      This mistreatment has been happening for decades and even centuries (not meaning to dwell) and has been overlooked by the white community. When cops are caught red-handed, it's still overlooked. And if it weren't for the videos, it never would have been given a second glance.

      It's as if we're now reliving the Rodney King ordeal on a weekly basis.

      Delete
    10. I'm amazed anybody thinks 'the law walks' ...I live in L.A and, trust me, we're constantly getting cases where the cops didn't 'walk' when they did something deserving of arrest or investigation.

      Delete
    11. The problem is that the prosecution is dependent on law enforcement to, well, prosecute. There has to be a good relationship in order for the prosecution to advance their careers.

      The Ferguson lack of indictment is a perfect example. The prosecution simply didn't want to and only did because he was forced into it. Then he turned himself into more of a defense for the police rather than a prosecutor.

      Delete
    12. The Ferguson grand jury decision was an example of citizens doing a good job and the judicial system working.

      Regardless of forensic evidence and eye-witness accounts, some still believe the propaganda that Wilson shot brown in the back when he had his hands up.

      Delete
    13. Well, Z, the situation in L.A. didn't improve because people sat on their hands and waited for the police to manage their own rogues.
      We don't have civilian review boards but the replacement is the cell phone camera.
      You never now about technology and damn if the cops haven't made every efforts to shut down filming.
      And what was it in L.A , Rodney something?

      Silverfiddle, it's a unbridgeable gap I fear.
      It starts with a world view about social order. I think the right is stuck in a view that demands social order be maintained by strict punishment and despite evidence it's not a particularly good idea we march on. Of course others just lived frightened and will go along with anything that makes them feel more secure.
      I don't include you and AOW in that group but Z is the classic case.

      The left is trying to move toward a system that does require negating a person's humanity to achieve that order. Militarizing the police, mandatory sentencing, three strikes your out and "broken windows" policing are all examples of a rigid hand on social order that are failing.

      As for your facile argument about the welfare state being the cause and the wondrous life blacks led before Lyndon Johnson, well the civil rights movement pretty much stuffs that idea where the sun doesn't shine.
      In fact you might as well blame the civil rights movement since you're in a post ho mood.

      But, easy answers, right?

      Delete
    14. @ Ducky: "well the civil rights movement pretty much stuffs that idea where the sun doesn't shine"

      How so? Explain.

      In no way do I connect minorities gaining their God-given rights with what is going on now.

      The Civil rights leaders, and their philosophical predecessors were all about personal responsibility, hard work, getting an education, keeping the family together and forming strong, supportive communities in spite of the hatred and prejudice surrounding them.

      White liberals stepped in and short-circuited all that.

      Delete
    15. Ducky,

      Your dishonesty is slipping out again.

      Neither I nor Sowell say blacks had a "wondrous life" pre-civil rights era.

      What the hell is it with you leftwing progs? You scream yourself purple over global warming shouting "SCIENCE!!!" at everything that moves, but when a social scientist with a PhD does some fundamental statistical comparisons, your brains leak out your ears and you make wild claims about something that person never said.

      Delete
    16. Duck,
      Where is "broken windows" policing still the norm for law enforcement? Surely not in Baltimore and NYC right now -- as far as I know, anyway.

      Delete
    17. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    18. It's just SO not worth a comment after all. But thanks for the laugh, Ducky. :-

      Delete
    19. Didn't expect a response, Z. I do have to say that I have been insulting of late due to the fact that you allowed mustang to post a comment about my parents which was just completely out of line and you were cheerleading for him.

      Delete
    20. My thinking is fine.

      You and Sowell want to play post hoc ergo propter hoc with welfare and changes in the black community.
      Does that genius Sowell (LMAO) control for the economic and social changes that were also putting a lot of pressure on white families and increasing middle class divorce and teen pregnancy?
      Of course he doesn't. He's a lightweight.

      No it all happen post hoc due to welfare. Yu might as well say it happened post hoc because of the civil rights movement. That thesis is as tightly controlled.

      So Sowell presented a poorly designed analysis. Science, science, science .

      Delete
    21. Ducky, YOUR PARENTS? I have not one clue what you're talking about. I know nothing about your parents, Mustang knows nothing about your parents... unless it was something like "libs raise unthinking libs, too" which I would cheerlead.

      You've been insulting for 15 years so let's not get carried away with self righteous indignation, please.

      And I didn't comment because you know very well I don't live in fear or anything else you wrote above. You've said so many negative things about me that you know to be untrue that it I wonder that it still surprises me.

      Delete
    22. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    23. By the way, I didn't respond because mischaracterizations were so dishonest, what's the point?
      Please don't hide behind some kind of implication I can't respond.
      TRUST me, I could.
      It's simply not worth my time.

      Delete
    24. Duck!

      Didn't expect a response, Z. I do have to say that I have been insulting of late due to the fact that you allowed mustang to post a comment about my parents which was just completely out of line and you were cheerleading for him.

      I have no idea what you're talking about!

      Whatever it was that irritated you, that happened at another blog -- not here.

      Please don't bring "a blog feud" here. Such a "blog feud" is its own brand of the grievance industry, which benefits nobody.

      I will delete any comments which attempt to discuss this matter any further because of lack of topicality.

      Delete
    25. Coud it be that Mustang ether implied or stated directly that Ducky is in fact a bastard? };-)>

      There was no need to say it out loud. We've well aware of that since the day "Mr. Ducky" first began his Sneer Campaign at FrontPage Magazine

      Delete
    26. Ducky,
      As a matter of fact, Dr Sowell does bring in such variables as you mention is his work. Obviously, you haven't read any of his books.

      The problem with you leftwing progs is as soon as someone puts a finger on any problem that indicts your progressive hive mentality, you scream like little girls running from a spider.

      Step one in solving a problem is identifying it.

      Delete
    27. Claradeluna Lipschitz said

      FT, you're hysterically funny. The fact that no one "gets it" makes it even funnier.

      Delete
  5. Actually, there are many solutions, but key to all of them is the people mired in this misery taking matters into their own hands and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

    I have relatives in the St Louis area and I have driven down Florissant Avenue where Michael Brown had his fatal encounter with Officer Wilson. A community college stands just a few miles up the road.

    Opportunities exist, but the left loves to pander to grievance. Yes, America's treatment of minorities was abhorrent, and yes, racism still exists, but the left has turned it into a swamp that people cannot get out of.

    The opportunities are there; its up to people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and take charge of their own lives. That is how everybody else does it, those with alcoholic and abusive parents, hateful fellow students, physical and mental disabilities... and that includes the majority of black people.

    ReplyDelete
  6. SF,
    I strongly agree!

    The grievance industry is turning certain areas into a swamp that people cannot get out of.

    The spiral I'm watching is hideous.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Replies
    1. If Marilyn Mobster spent more effort acting and sounding like Eliot Ness and less like Che Guevara, there wouldn't be any doubt about the authorship.

      Delete
  8. "Considering the above, what do you specifically propose as feasible solutions to the myriad problems of Baltimore?"

    Well, of course, remove all of the cops and let the people finish the job!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Opportunities exist, but the left loves to pander to grievance. Yes, America's treatment of minorities was abhorrent, and yes, racism still exists, but the left has turned it into a swamp that people cannot get out of.

    The opportunities are there; its up to people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and take charge of their own lives. That is how everybody else does it, those with alcoholic and abusive parents, hateful fellow students, physical and mental disabilities... and that includes the majority of black people.


    What you fail to realize, is that the mean IQ of those black people "trapped" in Baltimore is approximately 76 (source)...

    A person with an IQ "around 70" is considered to be mildly mentally retarded. Because of standards of error with test scoring (the IQ tests, like any test, are hardly foolproof) that number is frequently raised to 75. Persons with tested IQ scores in the range of 70/75 to 85 are considered to be low average functioning or borderline intellectual functioning.

    The DSM-II (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, second edition) was published in 1968 and was in place until replaced by the DSM-III in 1980. According to one article I found (at http://www.mentalhealthworld.org/v1i4_09... ) mental retardation extended through a measured IQ of 83 under the DSM-II. So using that criteria, a person with a measured IQ of 85 would not have been classified as mentally retarded.


    What employment "prospects" are there for the well over 100,000 intellectually impaired workers in Baltimore?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dr. Thomas Sowell? We love his perspective. Throw in Dr. Walter Williams.

    Feasible solution? There is no immediate quick fix for Baltimore's socio-cultural pathology. These things can be generational and the roots of sentiment, oral history, group perspective and misinformation resist confrontation with some basic truths. There is one basic truth that must be embraced. Each man, must take responsibility for his own actions.

    In Texas, the town of Wimberly suffered tremendous structural loss of facilities and homes, huge cypress trees were catapulted onto bridges, and the water carved the town into a gorge. In the aftermath, it was unlike New Orleans after Katrina. Simple and salt-of-the-earth Texans expressed gratitude, stated they would get through it, whilst mourning their losses in dignified manner. Wimberly, has good people. Good people behave differently in times of crisis than those who lack strong character.

    But please - don't ship the citizens of Baltimore to our state. We don't want 'em.

    Tammy

    ReplyDelete
  11. A few instances of bad cops, and the pursuant treatment (and killing?) of any cops, has pretty much destroyed the safety of all Americans in any town.
    Police are said now to be scared of chasing anybody, shooting anybody, doing anything which might have kept the whole neighborhood safer for bringing that perp down.

    I believed tasers should be used before guns until I learned that tasers do not stop perps high on drugs, it just doesn't. In the meantime, that perp who was tased can kill the cop or others around the scene.

    But, we're stuck now. Some bad cops, and a lot of bad people who've brought out the worst in our cops when they're abused and scoffed on a daily basis and have to see what they see (nobody talks about that end of it, do they...to unPC), have brought havoc on us and we all will potentially suffer, particularly when we have prosecuting attorneys as terrible as Baltimore's, practically promising her listeners "We'll get JUSTICE for you!"

    What kind of talk is THAT from a LAWYER who is supposed to actually practice justice for all? She should have been fired after that press conf., but...no.......no way. they like that. We're in very big trouble and I don't think most people recognize that.
    Our good cops are in even more peril. By the way, it's not ME who's going to shoot them. Nor is it you. But we can't talk about that.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is what happens when leftwing progressives address police abuse with Fidel Castro-like bombast and demagoguery.

    It is a mystery why decades of serial Democrat mismanagement of America's cities have not discredited them.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The mayor of Baltimore should have stepped down after her nonsensical comments on giving rioters the "space to destroy". Yep. She gave them the space. They destroyed the space.

    Tammy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tammy,
      Marilyn Mosby will never step down. Instead, she doubles down.

      In my view, she is fomenting even more agitation and mayhem. The very language she uses indicates a bond between her office and that of those ready to explode all over Baltimore.

      She said, "Our time is now." How does she define the word our?

      It's a wonder that the chip on her shoulder hasn't toppled her over.

      Sounds like a revolution to me. If not that, then demagoguery.

      If Baltimore devolves and becomes the next Detroit, she will have to shoulder some of the blame, IMO.

      Delete
  14. Ducky, Ronald Ward and the rest of you guilty white liberals:

    We're tired of old white people preaching their ignorant propaganda points to us.

    You haven't lived the black experience, so you don't know any more about it than any of the rest of us.

    Lets hear from a black man who knows what he is talking about:

    Hustlers and people with little understanding want us to believe that today's black problems are the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination. The fact is that most of the social pathology seen in poor black neighborhoods is entirely new in black history. Let's look at some of it.

    Today the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black families were two-parent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children had the same mother and father.

    Today's black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75 percent is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14 percent...


    * - For those prone to knee-jerk paroxysms and the PC heebeejeebees, notice Dr. Williams never said anything about blacks having it good or being better off as slaves. Being scientifically minded people, like the old man in the Thomas Dolby video, you understand he is making simple statements based upon socio-economic data.

    Yes, it really is about personal responsibility. Our federal government and the cloud of progressive social engineers who swarm around it are criminally negligent for enabling and encouraging pathologies and bad behavior.

    Urban blight, brought you you by guilty white leftwing progressives in the Democrat party

    Urban dysfunction, with all its crime and human tragedy is a project wholly planned, conducted and owned by morally-bankrupt leftwing progressives. If voters had any common sense they would look at progressive urban failures and never vote Democrat again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Feel guilt if you like. Better to face facts.

      All this talk about how stable black life was in the old days.

      I wonder if that think tank pimp remember the G.I. bill.
      In the early 50's we invested in low rate mortgages and low and behold, nearly a quarter of the housing i the early 50's (your black family life golden age) was purchased on the G.I. bill.

      Husing values rose consistently and this momy state program built middle class wealth. White middle class wealth I should say because blacks weren't eligible.

      So that's just one example of the basics needs of stable family life being denied minorities.
      But we'll hear a lot of crap about how the nasty welfare state destroyed the black family.

      Straight from the mouth of your hero, Thomas "the pimp" Sowell who once complained about students volunteering in homeless shelters because it was encouraging people who won't work. A real prize.

      You're on a roll. How about some data from Michael Savage.
      You're embarassing yourself.

      Delete
    2. Hate to blow down your house of straw, my little piggie, but explain the demographics of the black family since the Moynihan Report.

      Ooops... there goes the legacy of LBJ's Great Society and it's last shot at redemption, the Housing Bubble collapse of 2008.

      Delete
    3. SF.....The First Lady shows the kind of contempt the Left has for minorities, "the soft bigotry of low expectations," oddly enough. SHE made it, why can't OTHERS? Why not give a rousing talk about how they have the world at their fingers and can do anything anybody else does...no matter the color?
      Instead she wallows. But it DOES make more Democrat voters, let's face it.

      Delete
  15. What's more telling about ANY of Dr. Sowell's remarks about black family life is that given the racism and social and legal constraints on blacks prior to the civil rights movement that black families were quite 'intact' - slightly moreso than whites – before the 60’s. More young people employed and more literacy. Neither he nor anyone interprets that as the result of racism, nor as living in an ideal state because of social conditions. That would be ridiculous! It’s just as silly to say the relatively miniscule occurrences of racism today are now suddenly a big cause of all this dysfunction in black communities.

    Yet that’s what all these race baiters are running around saying. What Sowell demonstrates is that integrity of character in tandem with the large scale presence of functional male adults in family life is associated with better ‘outcomes.’ You remove those and you get worse outcomes – regardless of race. Welfare has played a huge role in that. And substituting government for real men in a woman’s family life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, distinguished figures like George Washington Carver, Thomas Sowell, Condoleezza Rice, Walter Williams, Deroy Murdock, Ben Carson, et al. are the all-too-rare exceptions that prove the rule.

      Delete
    2. "Unfortunately, distinguished figures like George Washington Carver, Thomas Sowell, Condoleezza Rice, Walter Williams, Deroy Murdock, Ben Carson, et al. are the all-too-rare exceptions that prove the rule."

      My first thoughts are, why is it it unfortunate. But then, your "rule" is rather undefined.

      Does President Obama fall into this "and others" "all-too-rare exception? Colin Powel? Oprah Winfrey? Hell, Al Sharpton?

      It's rather difficult to respond to your comment intelligently when it begs for clarification.

      Delete
    3. It is always difficult to respond intelligently to intelligent commentary when one lacks basic intelligence, oneself.

      Roderick Houghton-Holleran III

      Delete
  16. ________ Withering Scorn ________

    Who could say what motivates the Mob?
    Immodestly I say it isn’t I.
    The preference seems to be for those who rob
    Hope from those who still would like to try
    Elevation over Desecration ––
    Repair and not despair at what we dread.
    It seems the Mob prefers alienation ––
    Not Healing –– only Enmity instead.
    Grumbling is easier than building
    Submitting to the impulse to surrender
    Captures for the League of Fakers gilding
    Offal –– yet another sad Pretender.
    Responding to the instinct to stampede
    Never made the Tides of Fear recede.


    ~ FreeThinke

    ReplyDelete
  17. The fact that such profound bigotry has gone unchallenged, if not accepted with a nod of approval by the regular contributors here is rather telling.

    ReplyDelete
  18. An interesting fact that the media are generally ignoring is that since the NYPD threw a tantrum and backed of on stop & frisk, violent crime is DOWN.
    Doesn't fit the narrative so bury it.

    Now, neither this state nor the Baltimore stat is a relevant sample size so any responsible journalist would avoid drawing conclusions.
    However, there is an attempt to draw a firm conclusion from the Baltimre stat because the media are weighted nearly completely in favor of the police.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Amai7YqNQhHj8LSWrAS4BYCbvZx4?p=crime+up+since+stop+and+frisk&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-338&fp=1

      Where do you get your information?

      Delete
    3. Canardo never treats with truth. Dismal Red Diaper Brat that he is, all he ever does is hand out Red Propaganda from places like Truthout, Buzzflash, The Daily Kos, and the New York Times.

      He can't help it. The poor fellow was weaned Saul Alinsky's anus.

      He can't hold back his lies
      He won't stop till he dies.

      Please, oh please
      Mark, thee, my words:

      Reason cannot stop
      An ass from dropping turds!

      Delete
    4. http://www.myfoxny.com/story/29184607/nypd-gangs-shootings

      Check it out.

      ... Alinskiphobe

      Delete
    5. I get a link to a two year old NY Post story, Z.

      I'm referring to the polie action after the protests when they choked a man to death for no reason.
      Try to stay current.

      Delete
    6. ... but look at it this way, Silver.

      We militarize police and even hire on the mercenaries who were running black ops torture sites (how about that animal in Chicago) and you mix it with the "thin blue line meme" and what can go wrong?

      Delete
    7. http://nypost.com/2013/09/19/gunstats/

      Odd, this 2 year old article says quite the opposite.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-bloomberg-stop-and-frisk-keeps-new-york-safe/2013/08/18/8d4cd8c4-06cf-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html

      Read...read...learn, learn

      Delete
    8. Are you kidding Ducky or are you just plain Stupid
      The murder rate in New York is UP!
      And yeah it's up since that stupid imbicle Progressive Mayor stopped the police from "stopping, questioning, and Frisking".
      Any othe dumb statements you care to make?

      Delete
  19. Betty Battles, Sgt, USAMay 29, 2015 at 3:50:00 PM CDT

    No one nodded in approval. Now go scold somebody else, you leftwing pc prig.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Silence speaks volumes.

    "Leftwing pc prig"?

    I'm not precisely sure what that means but I'm kinda wondering at what point being a profound bigot was a purity test of belonging to today's so-called conservatives. Or perhaps, lest one kowtows to such a bigoted mindset, they be labeled as such an outsider..

    ReplyDelete
  21. Betty, my dear, why bother trying to reason with mental defectives? This poor, benighted soul is blissfully unaware that he, himself, is as glaring an example of a classic bigot as one could ever hope to find.

    Try not to fret, Betty, instead relax and simply savor the delicious humor that may be found in irony.

    Roderick Houghton-Holleran III


    ReplyDelete
  22. Aside from your unprovoked insults which actually discredits your argument, how is it that you identify yourself as "we"? Seems to me that FreeThinke, being the wordly type and all, could speak for himself. ?

    In the event that you and I happen to agree on something (me being pro-life, pro-gun, ect), please exclude me from those in which you decide to speak for because, well, obvious reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  24. ____ A KOMMIE SKREED _____

    Dedicated to all the Ronald Wards

    


I Just Adore Minorities
    
I Also Hate Majorities
    
I Truly Love Our Enemies
    
I Only Want the Reds to Please
    
I Deify Deadly Disease
    
I Want No One to Be At Ease
    
All People Should Suffer with Fleas
    
And When Our Sorry Species

    Finally Kills Superiorities
    
At Last We'll Have Equalities
    
Charting Our Destinies

    And No I Do Not Mean to Tease

    These Thoughts Are All Sincerities.


    ~ Yura Nasse

    ReplyDelete
  25. PEEKABOO, WE KNOW YOU

    An early symptom of mind cancer
    
Shows when victims always answer

    Every statement in plain sight

    Hoping to provoke a fight.
    
One comfort from those so diseased
    
Arrives when finally they're deceased!


    ~ Anne Animus

    ReplyDelete
  26. I just added a link to my post on this topic. It turns out that a number of these "black lives matter" protesters were paid to protest by George Soros and Obama's old ACORN. Apparently, black lives only matter when George Soros is prepared to pay for the protest.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I just added a link to my post on this topic. It turns out that a number of these "black lives matter" protesters were paid to protest by George Soros and Obama's old ACORN. Apparently, black lives only matter when George Soros is prepared to pay for the protest.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Stinky ole Ronnie Ward said: "In the event that you and I happen to agree on something (me being pro-life, pro-gun, ect), please exclude me from those in which you decide to speak for because, well, obvious reasons."

    Do you like puppies too?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Have you ever noticed that when these leftist programs fail that they are put on life support (more money) and the program failed, somehow, because of "racist" conservatives?

    ReplyDelete

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