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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / This Week In Blackness / Baltimore Bloods And Crips Unite To Take Out Police. Seriously?

Baltimore Bloods And Crips Unite To Take Out Police. Seriously?

by Elon James White|  April 28, 20152:44 pm| 102 Comments

This post is in: This Week In Blackness

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Tension continues to build in Baltimore as protests and riots swell after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. To make matters even worse, Baltimore police released that they had “credible information” that the Bloods and Crips in the area were uniting to take out police officers:

Was there a specific threat or piece of evidence that triggered the warning? Something to make police actually believe that the notoriously hostile gangs had put aside their differences to unite against a common enemy, Avengers-style? Eh. Captain Eric Kowalczyk, the department’s spokesman, told the Baltimore Sun that he couldn’t explain how the information was received or why it was deemed credible, or even if it has anything to do with the ongoing protests over the death of Freddie Gray.

That sounds feasible.

Team Blackness also discussed the defense of Laverne Cox and radical feminism exclusionism in Playboy of all places.

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Reader Interactions

102Comments

  1. 1.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 28, 2015 at 3:35 pm

    What’s sad is that this is being universally reported as absolute unquestioned fact. There was also an attempt to promulgate an even worse rumor; that these gangs were paying cash bounties for dead police officers. That one, thankfully, did not seem to get any traction.

    Baltimore PD should burn in hell for this. It’s absolutely disgusting.

  2. 2.

    jl

    April 28, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    ” That sounds feasible. ”

    I will assume that is sarcasm.

  3. 3.

    Kryptik

    April 28, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    Funny enough, from the way people actually on the ground say it, both gangs plus the Nation of Islam did more to try and bring tensions down than any of the SWAT-ed up cops did. From one of the Guardian’s US correspondents’ twitter:

    I want to thank the two members of the Bloods who walked me to safety and the others who stood around me when bottles were being thrown— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) April 27, 2015

    Gang members are playing a surprisingly important role keeping a semblance of order right now— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) April 27, 2015

  4. 4.

    sharl

    April 28, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    @Kryptik: You beat me to posting of those very same tweets. Although, if some of the replies to Mr. Jacobs’ tweets are to be believed – and gosh golly, why shouldn’t they? – he’s lucky they didn’t kill him on the spot.

  5. 5.

    Punchy

    April 28, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    The O’s are going to play in an empty stadium tomorrow.

    Weird wild shit.

  6. 6.

    M. Bouffant

    April 28, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    But, but …

    A similar (false) warning that jumped from e-mail forwards to official law enforcement warnings involved “gangs” purportedly retrofitting super soaker-style water guns to conceal working firearms. Again, no instances of actual gang activity matching that claim turned up.
    Read more at http://now.snopes.com/2015/04/27/baltimore-credible-threat/#UXkfjXAQH92fFyp0.99

    Plenty of other examples of police paranoia & delusion at the link.

  7. 7.

    Mandalay

    April 28, 2015 at 3:51 pm

    @Kryptik:

    both gangs plus the Nation of Islam did more to try and bring tensions down than any of the SWAT-ed up cops did

    Right, and last Saturday the Mayor of Baltimore personally thanked the Nation of Islam for their efforts. Not that you would be aware of that by following the MSM.

    It’s a nightmare for those in power if people in Baltimore increasingly view Louis Farrakhan as the solution, and the police as the problem, but fuck ’em – they created and fed the monster of police power over the people.

    Things have to change now. The police must become accountable for their bad behavior.

  8. 8.

    catclub

    April 28, 2015 at 3:54 pm

    The level of ignorant and crazy that bubbles up from the right wing is higher than in the past.

    On a radio call in show: ” I saw on youtube that the cost of Obamacare is making them cut the Defense department.”
    It was a public radio call in show.

  9. 9.

    fuckwit

    April 28, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    @Kryptik: I think both Sicilians and Russians might find there’s a lot of precedence for this. When the social order breaks down, whatever underground structure is in place suddenly becomes the order by default. Often, they do a surprisingly good job of fulfilling some basic tasks like safety.

  10. 10.

    Kryptik

    April 28, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    @Mandalay:

    It really is an absurd situation, and it’s one of the police’s and municipal government’s own making. Not that anyone not in Baltimore seems to care. After all, the way the media is reporting it, it’s just your usual flashmob of unexplained black violence.

    @fuckwit:

    Think I remember hearing how the Yakuza in Japan are much the same way, especially after the 2011 disasters.

  11. 11.

    Poopyman

    April 28, 2015 at 3:59 pm

    I have it on good authority that the source’s name is Curveball.

  12. 12.

    JDM

    April 28, 2015 at 3:59 pm

    Why on earth would anyone not believe the police?

  13. 13.

    ThresherK

    April 28, 2015 at 4:03 pm

    @fuckwit: Often, they do a surprisingly good job of fulfilling some basic tasks like safety.

    Now all I can think of are the underworld leaders in Fritz Lang’s M agreeing to do something about the child killer, because it’s creating disorder. Which is bad for bidness.

  14. 14.

    max

    April 28, 2015 at 4:03 pm

    Baltimore police released that they had “credible information” that the Bloods and Crips in the area were uniting to take out police officers:

    Except the Bloods and Crips have been all over this trying to make sure things don’t turn violent.

    max
    [‘I dunno where that one comes from.’]

  15. 15.

    Cacti

    April 28, 2015 at 4:08 pm

    Also have to say that it takes some big brass ones for Rand Paul to talk to Laura Ingraham about a “lack of fathers” and “morals” in Baltimore…

    Not even a week after his 22 year old son just got pinched for his 3rd DUI.

  16. 16.

    Kryptik

    April 28, 2015 at 4:10 pm

    @Cacti:

    But that just means he’s a wayward youth, and boys will be boys, you know?

  17. 17.

    fuckwit

    April 28, 2015 at 4:14 pm

    @Cacti: Republican Projection. It’s as predictable as the sunrise.

    Whenever you hear a Republican moralizing about something or panicking about the threat of some Democrat or liberal trying to or wanting to do something, it usually only takes minutes to find out that the Republican running his mouth off is flagrantly guilty of doing exactly that, for a long time, blatantly.

    It’s not just a lack of self-awareness, it’s a projection of their own guilt and evil and insecurity onto others. Instead of looking in the mirror and feeling guilt, they look outside to others and feel terror or disgust, they run around paranoid that everyone else is trying to do what they themselves have been doing.

    It’s a weird kind of disassociation: they are not able to feel shame about themselves, they just lift that shame out and paste it onto others.

  18. 18.

    sharl

    April 28, 2015 at 4:15 pm

    @Poopyman: Hahahaha! But hey, that’s Officer Curveball to you, pal!

  19. 19.

    Peale

    April 28, 2015 at 4:16 pm

    @fuckwit: Yes. Also, too, they do have business of a sort to run. One which is difficult in normal times and probably next to impossible when there are curfews and hundreds of more police around. Although they probably just don’t want to live in a burnt out shell of a neighborhood like the rest of their neighbors.

  20. 20.

    Cacti

    April 28, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    Ben Carson compares being mad at the cops brutalizing and killing minorities with being mad at bad service from a plumber.

    Not joking.

  21. 21.

    Peale

    April 28, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    @Kryptik: He’s just been too busy serving the country to notice his son has a drinking problem.

  22. 22.

    PaulW

    April 28, 2015 at 4:18 pm

    “…that he couldn’t explain how the information was received or why it was deemed credible…”

    Considering how many times the police lie to us about how their arrests really go down, how often they lie on their official reports, why the hell should we trust them on anything…?

  23. 23.

    fuckwit

    April 28, 2015 at 4:20 pm

    @ThresherK: Yeah, but that’s fiction. The history of the Sicilian Mafia, the Russian Mafia, and I’m told the Japanese Yakuza, follow a similar path, in real life. When the mainstream social order breaks down, or in remote areas it can’t reach or serve, whatever order existed outside the mainstream becomes the new social order. The writing of Dmitri Orlov explores this at length in the context of post-Soviet Russia. There have been many histories written on the Sicilian Mafia which show a similar pattern, and I’ll guess the Yakuza followed it too.

  24. 24.

    PaulW

    April 28, 2015 at 4:20 pm

    @Cacti:

    Ben Carson compares being mad at the cops brutalizing and killing minorities with being mad at bad service from a plumber.

    I saw that, tweeted back that bad service from a plumber means you don’t hire them again. How the hell can a citizen unhire a cop who performs bad service like KILLING you and lying about how you died?

  25. 25.

    Bobby Thomson

    April 28, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    Seems legit.

  26. 26.

    catclub

    April 28, 2015 at 4:26 pm

    @sharl: Are the Bloods and Crips in areas to the north, east, west, and south of Tikrit?

  27. 27.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 28, 2015 at 4:27 pm

    @PaulW: In a city near me there’s a liberal blogger who said a retired cop was facebooking fake photos of Michael Brown. (Retired cops have lots of time on their hands and love playing with facebook. I’m guessing the blood/crips rumor started with cop social media. Maybe they repeated what they heard on talk radio, or on a message board.)

    “That didn’t take long,” I thought to myself. So I did some research and in fact the photo is not of Mr. Brown — it is Joda Cain from Oregon who is accused of bludgeoning his grandmother to death. And it was first posted by Kansas City Police Officer Marc Catron with the caption “I’m sure young Michael Brown is innocent and just misunderstood. I’m sure he is a pillar of the Ferguson community.”

    Officer Catron should have known better as should the retired officer. Catron is now facing a department review for his lapse in judgment. At least no one was killed. Oddly enough, Joda Cain lived in Kansas City before he moved to Oregon.

    I tenderly pointed this out to the poster; so far no retraction.

  28. 28.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 28, 2015 at 4:29 pm

    I think both Sicilians and Russians might find there’s a lot of precedence for this. When the social order breaks down, whatever underground structure is in place suddenly becomes the order by default. Often, they do a surprisingly good job of fulfilling some basic tasks like safety.

    @fuckwit: The last two Palestinian governments got into power by doing exactly that.

    One of the big reasons the Taliban and these ISIL clowns keep failing in their attempts to take over any society is that they don’t deal with public safety. They come in and beat the shit out of everyone and shoot those who object, so as to make an example of them.

    In short, they behave like a roided-up version of American police.

  29. 29.

    PaulW

    April 28, 2015 at 4:31 pm

    As a Tampa resident I’m getting word now that the Rays and Orioles are shifting their schedules so that the next series is played in Tampa and not Baltimore.

    I’d make a joke about how ill-timed that is considering the city of Tampa/Hillsborough county is now under federal investigation over the horrendous disparity in police going after black bicyclists… but I doubt that will go over well.

  30. 30.

    Mandalay

    April 28, 2015 at 4:32 pm

    @PaulW:

    Considering how many times the police lie to us about how their arrests really go down, how often they lie on their official reports, why the hell should we trust them on anything…?

    You shouldn’t. The police wouldn’t hesitate to manufacture a crude lie like this to serve their own ends.

    Netanyahu manufactures lies about Iran. He’s not worried that they are going to bomb Israel – he’s terrified that that they are going to become an ally of the United States. And so it goes with the smearing the Crips, and the Bloods, and Lois Farrakhan, and the Nation of Islam. Those in power do not want these organizations gaining acceptance within communities, so they have to be portrayed as the evil boogeymen. Lying about them is a means to that end.

  31. 31.

    Mandalay

    April 28, 2015 at 4:41 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    One of the big reasons the Taliban and these ISIL clowns keep failing in their attempts to take over any society is that they don’t deal with public safety.

    You have to be kidding! Their achievements may be largely due to violence, or the threat of violence, but they are remarkably successful. In fact they have been far more successful than the United States ever was in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you are looking for a clown in all this…

  32. 32.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    April 28, 2015 at 4:41 pm

    Just imagine if Sam Adams and the so-called “Sons of Liberty” had decided to be more “moderate” or “reasonable”.

  33. 33.

    the Conster

    April 28, 2015 at 4:41 pm

    @Cacti:

    Sarah Palin on twitter claims that Baltimore is a distraction from the Iran negotiations. So yeah, the clowns are all out honking their noses and riding their little trikes.

  34. 34.

    Botsplainer

    April 28, 2015 at 4:46 pm

    @The Ancient Randonneur:

    Just imagine if Sam Adams and the so-called “Sons of Liberty” had decided to be more “moderate” or “reasonable”.

    We’d be Canada or Australia, which would suck.

    Imagine the misery – scaled healthcare costs and beer that wasn’t watery piss.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    April 28, 2015 at 4:49 pm

    @Botsplainer: Hey now! Good craft beers that are made right here in the USA are widely available!

  36. 36.

    Mike in NC

    April 28, 2015 at 4:49 pm

    Baltimore riot to be centerpiece of the upcoming FOX News documentary, “Obama’s War on White People, Part XXV”, hosted by Sean Hannity wearing helmet and body armor.

  37. 37.

    Mike J

    April 28, 2015 at 4:50 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    We’d be Canada or Australia, which would suck.

    Imagine the misery – scaled healthcare costs and beer that wasn’t watery piss.

    I’ll take American beers over Canadian or Aussie any day. I never need to drink a beer made more than 50 miles from Seattle, but I will sometime go for an import from Hood River, Oregon.

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    April 28, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    Imagine the misery – scaled healthcare costs and beer that wasn’t watery piss.

    Don’t be blaming the state of American beer on Sam Adams seems wrong. Besides, Canada and Australia aren’t exactly shining examples of great beer countries. Their big breweries put out about the same kind of pisswater big American breweries put out. But the small American breweries are now the envy of the beer drinking world, believe it or not.

  39. 39.

    rikyrah

    April 28, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    To make matters even worse, Baltimore police released that they had “credible information” that the Bloods and Crips in the area were uniting to take out police officers:

    The only people who remotely believed this were some White people. Black people knew it for the bullshyt lie that it is.

  40. 40.

    Dave

    April 28, 2015 at 4:58 pm

    @M. Bouffant: The funny thing is that there is probably a 50/50 chance that they really believe it. As if gangs want to incur the massive response that targeting law enforcement would result in. The same dynamic exists in military intelligence people see nothing but danger and can find reasons to believe it. Leads to some really bad decision making even if genuinely decent intentions exist (and I’m not willing to grant that I believe that this was genuinely good intentions just a bit skeptical of that).

  41. 41.

    chopper

    April 28, 2015 at 5:01 pm

    seems like somebody watched The Warriors recently.

    CAN YOU DIG IT?

  42. 42.

    Botsplainer

    April 28, 2015 at 5:04 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    OK, that’s fair. We’ve evolved beyond the Bud-Miller-Coors-Stroh’s-Old Milwater vortex of suck. In good craft beer production areas (the People’s Democratic Kenyan Socialist Shariah Republic of Louisville being one), communist small businesses are eating into the rightful profits, executive compensation packages and stock share value of the patriotic Big Brewers, which love America more than us.

  43. 43.

    slag

    April 28, 2015 at 5:05 pm

    @Kryptik: Here’s the video of a few of the gang members talking directly about their intentions: http://happyplace.someecards.com/baltimore/baltimore-gang-members-respond-to-claims-by-police-that-they-were-planning-to-take-out-cops/.

    Nice that the reporter explicitly stated that what these gang members are saying is exactly the opposite of what is being promoted elsewhere in the media.

  44. 44.

    Aleta

    April 28, 2015 at 5:11 pm

    Speaking of conspiracies unearthed by the media:

    Here’s a headline (filed under Cybercrime) by Fox News: “Social media analysis suggests links between Baltimore and Ferguson violence”

    Is Fox about to reveal a breakthrough realization about racism and community policing? No. “An analysis of social media traffic in downtown Baltimore Monday has unearthed striking connections to the protests in Ferguson, Mo. last year, according to a leading data mining firm that shared its findings exclusively with F News. The firm, which asked to remain anonymous because of its government work, found between 20 and 50 social media accounts in Baltimore that were also tied to the peak period of violence in Ferguson. While further analysis is being conducted on the data, it suggests the presence of “professional protesters” or anarchists ….

    One account, which also tracked the recent union protests in New York City as well as other disturbances … used language that seemed to anticipate violence in Baltimore.

    The discovery that some social media accounts were tied to cities 825 miles apart was described to Fox News as “surprising.” ”

    foxnews.com/tech/2015/04/28/social-media-analysis-suggests-links-between-baltimore-and-ferguson-violence/

  45. 45.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 28, 2015 at 5:13 pm

    Bernie Sanders just tossed his hat into the ring. He’s running as a democrat.

  46. 46.

    glory b

    April 28, 2015 at 5:16 pm

    @PaulW: Hmmm. All the more reason to d oit, in my book.

  47. 47.

    Kyle

    April 28, 2015 at 5:16 pm

    The first thing I thought of when I heard about the Crips and the Bloods gathering together to kill policemen were the stupid emails from umpteen years ago warning you that if oncoming cars flash their bright lights at you, you weren’t supposed to flash back. it was a gang initiation and if you flashed back you would be shot. This has the same level of credibility.

  48. 48.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 28, 2015 at 5:18 pm

    @Aleta:

    “Social media analysis suggests links between Baltimore and Ferguson violence”

    Also, right wing media analysis suggests link between Australian media magnate and American conservative propaganda.

  49. 49.

    Elie

    April 28, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    Ok – I’m ok with saying that gang members probably had nothing to do with this rumor. However, are we conferring angel status on the Bloods and Crips? Are we saying that they may not have had any negative influence on events last night though individual gang members may have been seen as on their best behavior? As I said, I am willing to concede that gang members had no agenda to bump off cops. I am unwilling to completely think that they didn’t have other agendas.. like what was in those two drug stores that ended up in flames or liquor stores, or…? They were just being boy scouts, some of you are saying?

  50. 50.

    Botsplainer

    April 28, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    @Aleta:

    “An analysis of social media traffic in downtown Baltimore Monday has unearthed striking connections to the protests in Ferguson, Mo. last year, according to a leading data mining firm that shared its findings exclusively with F News.

    Let me guess as to the data mining firm – it was established as an adjunct to Stratfor, that spry collection of 70-something year old former E5s and E6s that were veterans of stateside quartermaster depots and Army administrative details in Germany and Japan in the years between 1955 and 1965, none of whom ever heard a round whiz by in anger.

  51. 51.

    Violet

    April 28, 2015 at 5:23 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: Wow. Awesome. The more the merrier. Hope some younger Democrats decide to run as well.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    April 28, 2015 at 5:25 pm

    @Mike J:

    I never need to drink a beer made more than 50 miles from Seattle, but I will sometime go for an import from Hood River, Oregon.

    Spoken like somebody who has never tried beer from Russian River.

  53. 53.

    Botsplainer

    April 28, 2015 at 5:25 pm

    @Elie:

    If they burnt out the pawn/check cashing place, they did the community a favor.

    Same with any shit downscale liquor store.

    Those places weren’t selling delightful bottles of surprisingly joyous Australian Shiraz from South Australia or the Barossa Valley, nor were they selling handcrafted tequila at $80 per bottle.

  54. 54.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 28, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    @Elie: Eh, no.

    Think like a drug dealer for a minute. Are burning liquor stores and an army of cops in the street good for your business? No. Will you want to help get things back to normal so you can get on with said business with a minimum of disruption? Yes.

    Fuck, figure it out, it’s not that hard. You conservatives can never see the forest as you’re all busy staring, slack-jawed, at the bark of the tree two inches from your face.

    If they burnt out the pawn/check cashing place, they did the community a favor.

    @Botsplainer: That, I’m totally on board with. Payday lending should be banned and made a crime.

  55. 55.

    Violet

    April 28, 2015 at 5:27 pm

    @Aleta:

    One account, which also tracked the recent union protests in New York City as well as other disturbances … used language that seemed to anticipate violence in Baltimore.

    So they’re saying this is a plot by The Blahs? Of course they are.

  56. 56.

    slag

    April 28, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    @Elie:

    However, are we conferring angel status on the Bloods and Crips?

    Yes. Obvs.

    As the New York Times has made clear, without a “NO ANGEL” disclaimer on any story about a person’s (or group of persons’) confrontations with police, angel status is automatically conferred on said person (or group of persons). Did you really have to ask?

  57. 57.

    kc

    April 28, 2015 at 5:32 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Baltimore PD should burn in hell for this.

    This, plus its propensity for beating the crap out of civilians and slamming them around paddy wagons with intent to harm. Repeatedly.

  58. 58.

    Mike J

    April 28, 2015 at 5:32 pm

    @Roger Moore: I didn’t say they didn’t have good beer outside of Seattle, merely that one could live a fairly complete beer drinking life while staying local.

  59. 59.

    Botsplainer

    April 28, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Think like a drug dealer for a minute. Are burning liquor stores and an army of cops in the street good for your business? No. Will you want to help get things back to normal so you can get on with said business with a minimum of disruption? Yes.

    As I’ve long said, your average dope slinger is an entrepeneur with a high tolerance for risk.

    If you’re a bright young black man from an impoverished area, you know that playing by the rules will result in you working long, hard hours for shit wages, while The Man elevates his own all around you, and leaving you to a lifetime of those shit wages. You know, from the start, the deck is stacked against you insofar as educational opportunities and employment are concerned. Your opportunities for use of your economic gains from labor consist of forays to stores that aren’t owned by your neighbors to buy overpriced and expired staple goods (your average quickie mart), or to chains owned by giant conglomerates which ship money out of the community (think about that looted CVS).

    Why wouldn’t you turn to criminality to make your way, if you have the organizational skills?

  60. 60.

    Mike J

    April 28, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    That, I’m totally on board with. Payday lending should be banned and made a crime.

    Why don’t we ever hear from those good Christians of the type protesting at the Supreme Court today about this, which is explicitly called a sin over and over and over and over again in that book they pretend they’ve read?

  61. 61.

    Laertes

    April 28, 2015 at 5:36 pm

    Since I wasn’t born yesterday, and I can read, I simply do not believe a single goddamn word any police officer anywhere says about any protest. They will simply make shit up, like they have done repeatedly in the past, knowing perfectly well that people eager to believe them will believe anything, and that there are enough of these that the rest of us don’t matter.

  62. 62.

    Aleta

    April 28, 2015 at 5:39 pm

    @Botsplainer: No fair blowing their cover on their exclusive anonymous leaks of important government security information

  63. 63.

    Violet

    April 28, 2015 at 5:44 pm

    @Mike J: Because it doesn’t involve sex.

  64. 64.

    Chris

    April 28, 2015 at 5:45 pm

    @fuckwit:

    I remember reading something about riots in the late 1960s (in Washington DC I think) that noted that out of the bad neighborhoods of town, the only ones that remained more or less orderly were the ones where the local gang or mob boss had maintained order.

    I called fucking bullshit on the entire Crips/Bloods/BGF line of thought the first time I heard it. Still do.

  65. 65.

    Aleta

    April 28, 2015 at 5:46 pm

    @Botsplainer: The Irish did it, the Italians did it, it’s How the West Was Won and distributed.

  66. 66.

    Mike in NC

    April 28, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    @Botsplainer: Years ago I walked out of a liquor store in downtown Baltimore and a man on the sidewalk nearby asked me if I could give him a “hot shot”. Had never heard that term before — it means to jump start a car’s battery with cables — but I was pretty sure it was something I wanted no part of.

  67. 67.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    April 28, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    @Elie: No, I suspect that they were: a) trying to prevent a massive increase in police presence in their neighborhoods; b) at least partially concerned about burning down the places that they live; and c) trying to return to calm because the riots are hell on anyone trying to run a business in the area, whether it’s a legal business or illegal.

    Self-interest is sufficient to explain their attempts to make peace. In this case, I suspect that individual gang members may have been involved in the looting, but the bulk of the gangs really are probably trying to stop them. It doesn’t mean that I think the gangs aren’t evil or that Baltimore wouldn’t be better off without them. But in this one particular instance, they’re doing good.

    It would make an awesome story arc if The Wire still existed.

  68. 68.

    Elie

    April 28, 2015 at 5:54 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Uhhh– I’m no conservative and neither am I naïve. Again, while its ok to assume that not all gang members are up to no good, just consider me something of a skeptic on that score. I also find it not particularly amusing that some commenters (not you) seem to think that a life of crime is a rational and reasonable alternative for black young men as a response to an unjust and racist system. In fact, I find that contemptible, but just call me old fashioned…

    Ripped off drugs and booze are possible in chaos. Of course running a liquor store or drug store is different than collecting booty from looting. A merchant prefers safety and peace. Pirates on the other hand, look for disruption – by intent.

  69. 69.

    Chris

    April 28, 2015 at 5:56 pm

    @Elie:

    No one’s saying the Crips and Bloods aren’t a bag of dicks. Just calling bullshit on the idea that they’re behind this or even a major part of it.

    As noted above, this kind of craziness is bad for business. The Crips and Bloods didn’t survive this long by being completely stupid, they’re a little above Jets and Sharks level.

    Beyond that? It just sounds and smells like bullshit. Exactly the sort of bullshit, pulled-out-of-my-ass line that white Western authorities and media pull when unexpected trouble erupts from some nonwhite walk of life that they don’t understand very well, and they immediately try to rationalize it by pining it on the first villain they vaguely remember being associated with that walk of life. (See also masterstrokes like blaming 9/11 on Saddam Hussein or blaming the Iranian Revolution on communist agitators).

  70. 70.

    Chris

    April 28, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    @Elie:

    I also find it not particularly amusing that some commenters (not you) seem to think that a life of crime is a rational and reasonable alternative for black young men as a response to an unjust and racist system.

    I think the point most people are making is that a lot of these guys don’t see any “rational and reasonable” paths ahead.

  71. 71.

    the Conster

    April 28, 2015 at 6:03 pm

    @Elie:

    I was half listening to Obamas comments today, but he said something to the effect that if drugs is the main enterprise in the neighborhood, then you can expect enterprising youth to make that their enterprise in the absence of alternatives. He noted the absence of fathers as well, lost to incarceration.

  72. 72.

    PJ

    April 28, 2015 at 6:03 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Actually, the biggest reason the Taliban came to power and stayed in power (until the US invasion) was because, in a lawless country ruled by warlords/gangsters, people are going to support the group that puts an end to rape, murder, and theft. And the Taliban did just that; of course, they did a lot of other things besides, which is why people deserted them in droves after the US invasion, when it looked like there would be a “freer” version of law and order on offer, and why some people turned to them again when it became clear the US did not give a rat’s ass about law and order. Check out No Good Men Among the Living by Anand Gopal.

  73. 73.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 28, 2015 at 6:05 pm

    Years ago I walked out of a liquor store in downtown Baltimore and a man on the sidewalk nearby asked me if I could give him a “hot shot”. Had never heard that term before — it means to jump start a car’s battery with cables — but I was pretty sure it was something I wanted no part of.

    @Mike in NC: “Hot shot” is also a term for a user who shoots heroin that is far higher in purity than said user gambled on, leading to the death of said user. And you surely don’t want a part of that.

    @Elie: You are naive. Or something. Career criminals tend not to indulge themselves in crimes of low-reward opportunity. Which looting a liquor store is kind of the definition of.

    As far as a “life of crime” being a reasonable/rational alternative, well, I’m not that desperate, but I’m white and work in an office and make lots of money, so for me it isn’t a good alternative. If I had no other options, I might have a much different answer.

    It’s good to keep in mind that the difference between a successful criminal and successful businessman largely depends on the legal definition of “business”.

  74. 74.

    scav

    April 28, 2015 at 6:07 pm

    @Elie: A) Remember, rational doesn’t mean moral. And B) your understanding of criminal pefers chaos necessarily is simplistic. Scarier criminal organizations are exactly that, organized ones and that lot doesn’t like to waste effort with disorder, they like a stable system because they know how to use it, they know all the buttons. You think distribution, supply chains, distribution chains, blah di blah aren’t needed once the stamp of legality vanishes?

  75. 75.

    Elie

    April 28, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    @Chris:

    I appreciate your thoughtful response. I recognize and accept that life in our fractured world is very complex and that decisions people are forced to make are not always clearly and cleanly black and white (har har har). Still, I cannot just shrug and accept that a young man’s so called rational decision to be a criminal is ok. I just cannot, though I fully acknowledge that many white people are crooks and were crooks historically as they “evolved” through their tenure in this country.

    I know that black mothers looks at their newborns with something different in mind than being a gang banger.

  76. 76.

    Botsplainer

    April 28, 2015 at 6:13 pm

    @scav:

    About 20 years ago, somebody stole an artistically valuable icon from an Orthodox church in a part of NYC (Brooklyn, IIRC) that John Gotti controlled. Don’t remember whether it was Greek or Antiochian Orthodox, that part doesn’t matter. Anyway, Gotti had some important connections in that parish, and announced how upset he was about it, how the icon should make its way back.

    And like a miracle, it reappeared.

    In the world of the mob, there is a form of order. Plus, the thing that made the whole thing work was that everybody in the organization got a taste – they weren’t nearly as stingy as the 1% are in our world.

  77. 77.

    Botsplainer

    April 28, 2015 at 6:15 pm

    @Elie:

    Still, I cannot just shrug and accept that a young man’s so called rational decision to be a criminal is ok. I just cannot, though I fully acknowledge that many white people are crooks and were crooks historically as they “evolved” through their tenure in this country.

    White privilege. It is quite easy for us to make those value judgments; we have the luxury of doing so.

  78. 78.

    Elie

    April 28, 2015 at 6:15 pm

    @scav:

    Yeah, I am probably simple minded about this. I get your slick representation of supply chain and other business considerations as valid for quasi criminals as well. I just don’t like it and don’t see gang banging as just another acceptable business opportunity for young black men. Would you want that for white and brown young men? What do you think of when you think, ” so and so is a member of a gang”? Does that feel neutral when compared to say, being a teacher, or researcher? or writer? or other merchant. As I said upstring, just call me old fashioned.

  79. 79.

    Elie

    April 28, 2015 at 6:20 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Maybe your white privilege blinds you to other important considerations that a minority person needs to consider more… In your world, whatever you do is ok I guess. No biggie to be a liar or a crook, as long as you make lots of money, right?

  80. 80.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 28, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    No biggie to be a liar or a crook, as long as you make lots of money, right?

    @Elie: You really are quite naive.

    Name me one rich person who got there by being scrupulously honest, or by not breaking the law.

    I’ll help: there aren’t any.

    I don’t like it any more than you do but that’s the world we live in. Sorry.

  81. 81.

    beltane

    April 28, 2015 at 6:32 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Well, don’t forget inherited wealth. Also, the best thing about being a rich person is that you get to make the law obey YOU rather than the other way around.

  82. 82.

    kc

    April 28, 2015 at 6:34 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Payday lending should be banned and made a crime.

    You’re gonna need an alternative.

  83. 83.

    kc

    April 28, 2015 at 6:35 pm

    @kc:

    Well, not an alternative to payday lending so much as an entirely new system in which people do not need to repeatedly at crushing interest just to live from week to week.

  84. 84.

    Roger Moore

    April 28, 2015 at 6:36 pm

    @kc:

    You’re gonna need an alternative.

    Let’s start with a livable minimum wage.

  85. 85.

    Botsplainer

    April 28, 2015 at 6:41 pm

    @Elie:

    Maybe your white privilege blinds you to other important considerations that a minority person needs to consider more… In your world, whatever you do is ok I guess. No biggie to be a liar or a crook, as long as you make lots of money, right?

    Tell me what you’d have them do. Sing Kum-Ba-Ya and chant about peace in a drum circle while eating wholesome vegan snacks? Maybe they can crowdsource the capital necessary to start an organic fabric craft collective, at least, until they get shut down for not having appropriate retail permits to sell their wares, or get randomly patted down after leaving a street fair to sell their goods and having their cash proceeds confiscated.

    What do nice white people expect young men from impoverished areas to do? Wait for white people to do the right thing and stop demanding petty, broken window policing? Remember just how long it took after the Civil Rights Act, and how graciously white people of the South accepted that, embracing people of color as their brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, happily allowing them finally to participate in the community.

    LOL

    White people accepted the model of Martin Luther King reluctantly, and only when the alternative models appeared to be according to a cross of the visions of Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, which scared the living shit out of them.

  86. 86.

    the Conster

    April 28, 2015 at 6:42 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    You can’t be against a livable wage and against a government safety net, but we have 47% of the country who are against both because of race. Half of our country is clinically delusional. Have a nice day!!

  87. 87.

    scav

    April 28, 2015 at 6:44 pm

    @Elie: You’re still confusing some moral issues with rationality. It’s easier to think that all rational outcomes will inevitably be moral outcomes. Nope. Criminals in my “slick” description are not “quasi” criminals, they are 100% criminals, and they need those chains etc. because they’re managing international flows of goods. So, they’re International criminals, criminals under multiple jurisdictions, again, not Quasi so you can maintain the hypothesis that the need for order must therefore be good. There are criminal activities that do better under conditions of chaos. Hell there are businesses that do the same. It’s not a bright edge between order-moral-rational-good and everything else tidily on the other side.

    Speaking morally, I’m not fond of any guys of any skin tones joining criminal gangs, but then I really really don’t like them joining frats or becoming hedge fund managers either. But they all may have decided to do so based on rational means and, the latter two categories are racking up some fine records of illegality as well, over and beyond their often suspect morality.

  88. 88.

    Doug Decker

    April 28, 2015 at 7:11 pm

    @catclub: You win the internet

  89. 89.

    Elie

    April 28, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    I can hold two understandings of reality. I can accept that many rich people are not honest while also having high ideals about how I would like young people – actually all people to behave. I am not shattered that good and morality are not supreme. But I don’t stop holding it as my standard and my hope especially, for being a real human.

    I certainly do not want to come across as judging you or any of our BJ commenters as being amoral. I realize your comments have truth in them. But I just cannot hold that truth as a wished for goal for the young black men who struggle under the load that life here in this country has thrust on them. I truly pray that as many as can, escape having to come to terms with a criminal life because nothing else is clear for them. Somehow I just don’t see that as a win for them, or us…

  90. 90.

    Sly

    April 28, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    To make matters even worse, Baltimore police released that they had “credible information” that the Bloods and Crips in the area were uniting to take out police officers:

    Cops said the same thing during the L.A. Riots, and it was bullshit then, too.

  91. 91.

    Sly

    April 28, 2015 at 7:24 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    What do nice white people expect young men from impoverished areas to do?

    Stage sit ins and occupy public spaces. At which point they’ll complain about the fucking traffic.

  92. 92.

    muddy

    April 28, 2015 at 7:26 pm

    @scav: The Wire keeps coming up for more than being set in Baltimore. I only just saw it last year, I watched the whole series straight through. What I was continually struck by was that the exact same moves and machinations, the same conversations exactly, were going on in the street business, in the big business, and in the government “business”. But only one of these groups went to prison or died over it.

  93. 93.

    Plantsmantx

    April 28, 2015 at 7:27 pm

    Yes, those gangs called a truce to “send a message” that they intend to “take out” police, and yesterday’s riot was the result of hoards of black high-schoolers who were intent on acting out the plot of the movie “The Purge”. What? Y’all didn’t know that?

  94. 94.

    muddy

    April 28, 2015 at 7:28 pm

    @catclub:

    Are the Bloods and Crips in areas to the north, east, west, and south of Tikrit?

    No, silly. Obviously that would be the Nation of Islam.

  95. 95.

    slag

    April 28, 2015 at 7:28 pm

    @scav: Thank you for taking the time and effort to make all of these points.

    Another potentially salient point is the structural racism and classism inherent in our criminal justice system and how race and class have traditionally played an important role in which activities are criminalized in the first place. How many debates have we had about the drug war now?

    Sure, dealing drugs may be morally ambiguous, but ostracizing these kids through felonies or other means before their 19th birthdays isn’t. It’s wrong. So, why aren’t we putting the NO ANGEL disclaimer on all agents of that system during these discussions? Oh that’s right. They’re people doing the best they know how in a broken world, and we recognize them as such. I wonder why that is.

  96. 96.

    Citizen Scientist

    April 28, 2015 at 7:51 pm

    As soon as I heard the ‘credible threat’ about the Bloods and Crips yesterday, my BS detector exploded. What horsesh!t.

  97. 97.

    MomSense

    April 28, 2015 at 8:24 pm

    I’m watching a PBS special and they are showing Kent State. I have so many memories of rolling down the hill in front of the library as a little girl, seeing the tears on my mom’s face, and not knowing why. Before Kent State it was Edmund Pettus and so many other places. It is the same old playbook of manufacturing a threat as an excuse to get their war zone on.

    We have to stop this brutality. I don’t know how we do it but I want to help.

  98. 98.

    geg6

    April 28, 2015 at 8:27 pm

    @Citizen Scientist:

    Mine too. I actually said “bullshit” much more loudly than I should have while in my office with the door open. So ridiculous, like a bad novel. Same crap they tried back during the LA riots.

  99. 99.

    Paul in KY

    April 29, 2015 at 8:32 am

    @Botsplainer: Oh, the horror!!!

  100. 100.

    Paul in KY

    April 29, 2015 at 8:33 am

    @Roger Moore: I like Coopers.

  101. 101.

    Paul in KY

    April 29, 2015 at 8:35 am

    @chopper: Yeah, I hear that gang that dresses up as baseball players and with clown makeup are also going to ally with the Crips/Bloods. Maybe that gang that Malcolm MacDowell was in also. Too.

  102. 102.

    Paul in KY

    April 29, 2015 at 8:39 am

    @Elie: I’m guessing that if you were born into a life of abject poverty in Mexico & had 3 or 4 kids, you would just stay in Mexico & starve, rather than (gasp) doing something illegal like crossing the border into the U.S.

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