Baltimore Notes

I hear a lot of talk on CNN about 'outside agitators' in Baltimore, but the youth of the rioters suggests not them. Plus, less than a third of the police, and only a third of the firefighters, actually live in Baltimore. So, maybe outside agitation is an issue - just not among the rioters.

I'm bothered about these repeated warnings from the BPD that the Bloods and Crips were planning to unite against them. This need not be correct and advertises weakness. This 'Purge' memo thing is interesting - I wonder who's responsible for that? CNN seemed surprised that rioters appeared to be coordinating with each other. Well, duh, it is the era of Twitter, etc. Last year, they very nearly had riots in Albuquerque, but there, what was most striking was the outsized role of Anonymous, and very perplexing, almost idiotic demands. Here, I have the impression we haven't yet heard of who is coordinating all this, and how agile they may be. Intriguing that the focus appears to be on corporate pharmacies. Maybe it's just where CNN could travel. Every riot is different, of course.

It's very difficult to understand what happens in riots. Even the microcosm of an individual's head is terra incognita. I remember Sacramento in 1992. The riots in LA had just occurred, and a large protest march against police violence was planned. I thought this was a very bad idea under the circumstances. I started talking to a passing pedestrian, who was walking down to join the protest. I tried talking him out of it. He said that in the wake of the murders of JFK, MLK & RFK, it was important to take a stand. I replied that this didn't make any sense: it was 1992, not 1968. But off he went anyway (and fortunately the protest was peaceful). What each participant in a riot thinks is happening, and what's actually happening, may be two different things entirely.