The cult of Freddie Gray grows by day. Now there is a mural honoring this small-time crook ("A memorial for Freddie Gray," June 11). But this is only to be expected. In the culture of Sandtown and similar areas, the cops are always villains and the drug dealers always misunderstood victims. Well-meaning people paraded with signs saying, "Black lives matter."
But the parade quickly turned into a riot and in the aftermath, the murder rate in Baltimore skyrocketed with most of the murderers and most of the people killed being black, too. The solutions proposed are just as counterproductive as the demonstrations were. Is there a growing drug problem in Maryland? Decriminalize marijuana. Are there a disproportionate number of black males in prison? Declare their crimes as non-crimes. Restore the voting rights of felons. Reward bad behavior. Is there a crime problem in the inner city? Threaten the cops with indictments. Is there a lack of jobs in the inner city? Drive potential investors away with riots and looting. Did zero-tolerance gradually reduce the crime rate? Get rid of it, it worked too well.
More than 60 years ago, I learned this maxim from a fellow soldier recently released from the military prison called the stockade: "If you can't do the time, don't commit the crime." He learned his lesson. Military stockades are not resort hotels. The guards don't have love affairs with the inmates.
It will take many years, perhaps decades, to reduce the crime rate and restore some semblance of law and order in the inner city. If the power structure fails to recognize the folly of their current non-solutions, it may take forever.
John Culleton, Eldersburg