So, one more commentary on Baltimore tonight. I'll keep this short. If you want some background on the relationship between the Baltimore Police and the community, The Baltimore Sun had an extensive report back in September 2014. Undue Force looked at the $12 million dollars the city has paid out in settlements and legal fees to over 100 victims of police misconduct in just that past 4 years. (Hat tip to Charles P. Pierce for digging it up.)
The victims have been barred from discussing their cases; talk and the City can go after the money. It's part of the settlement. (So, it's not just 'justice' - it's also hush money.) The Sun managed to uncover the details of some cases however, and it is pretty disturbing. Read the whole thing, and you'll have a much better idea of the context of this latest chapter in 'post-racial' America.
Meanwhile, Pierce is still on the case tonight, with something of a wrap up on the day and a preliminary shot at parsing blame. Governor Larry Hogan is getting called out for being rather feckless about the whole thing, while throwing Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake under the bus. And then there is O'Malley:
But if there's one politician who had an even worse day, it was former Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, currently running a demi-campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. More than a few people have cited O'Malley's law-and-order turn toward "zero tolerance" policing as one of the root causes of the cowboy mentality that infected the Baltimore P.D., which is not the first time anyone made this connection, as anyone who has watched The Wire knows.
Pierce's quote from
the BBC piece is spot on:
...To keep the affluent Baltimore viable, city officials have pursued a laser-like focus on crime, ensuring its new up-and-coming neighbourhoods stay safe. Meanwhile, in sprawling low-income areas on the city's east and west sides, the police have been omnipresent. Sometimes their methods have bordered on draconian.
The success of the new Baltimore has never touched many parts of the city, most prominently the west side where this week's violence began. Take away the towering downtown, the waterfront and other affluent enclaves and Baltimore suddenly looks a lot like Ferguson - poor, harassed and angry.
If there is anything good about this, it's not just that it's calling attention to America's problem in dealing with race and/or police brutality. It's also focusing attention on the massive inequality in this country and the economic and political choices of the last 40 years that have led us into a very dark place indeed.
There is going to be a very determined attempt by the Right Wing to yet again frame this as the result of failed Liberal policies, above and beyond the usual "blame Obama" for everything. Sean Hannity was already hammering away at this today on his radio show, along with blaming the victims.
It's about time we shoved it right back down their pie-holes. The election of 2016 is not going to be fun - but it may be the tipping point at which the nation can be pushed around to a new direction - IF Democrats don't lose their nerve and finally dump the neoliberal fallacies that have enabled so much of the Republican agenda. It's not too soon to start getting progressive candidates into position NOW for the upcoming primaries at all levels. That Hillary Clinton is promising a campaign from the precinct level on up through all 50 states is a good start - and the opportunity to not only get Democrats back into state houses, governorships, and Congress, but to get the right kind of Democrats into place to turn this country around.