It is somewhat entertaining, although in a negative way, as I watch the city of Baltimore inching ever closer to the kind of policing that it wants, and probably and sadly, may very well get (“Baltimore police union draws online criticism calling youths 'criminals' after Inner Harbor incident,” May 26). The president of the Fraternal Order of Police is being excoriated for calling some criminals “criminals” simply because they were just overly exuberant “youths.” Later on in the article, the spokesman for the mayor, Lester Davis, said “that public figures need to be mindful to not define a large group of youths ‘with a broad brush.’” I don’t believe that saying “some” people of any group is an indictment of the entire group.
Let me say something about those “children,” “youths,” “students,” “young people,” juveniles or whatever other name they might be called. If they commit a crime, by definition they are criminals. If it looks like a duck, and acts like a duck, most likely it’s a duck. Youth doesn’t absolve or pardon criminals, and those childish acts of youth may very well be deadly. A brick, bottle, or chunk of concrete may be used as a deadly weapon. Does it matter if your skull is crushed, and you are killed, as to who it was that threw the projectile that killed you? You are just as dead as if it were thrown by an adult man or woman as you will be if it were thrown by a 14-year-old “child.”
I worked the street during the Baltimore riots of 1968 and know what it’s like to dodge bricks and bottles, and we didn’t have helmets, vests, riot shields, or walkie talkies back then. What we did have was a commissioner with guts and an administration that backed up its police.
It’s a wonder that Baltimore has managed to hold together some semblance of a police force after the disgusting way that it was treated by the then-administration, the public and the media, during the most recent Baltimore riots. The officers who remain are either totally dedicated to their profession, and the decision to serve the public, or they are losing their minds! Recalling those riots, the media made a point of saying that many of the rioters were “school children,” and they were correct. What the media didn’t say is that those mischievous children were lobbing deadly weapons at the police, even as the police were ordered to “stand down.” The administration tacitly, by ordering the police to do nothing, turned the streets over to the rioters. Every one of those “school children” who picked up and threw a brick, bottle, or chunk of concrete, was a criminal, and should have been arrested and charged with the crime of “assault with a deadly weapon.” But then again, so many of Baltimore’s residents, and many within the administration, don’t believe that “blue lives matter” too. How sad, how shameful.
Baltimore is moving toward what I call a “hands off” approach to policing. They want the police, they just don’t want them to “bother” anyone. That approach is ridiculous and doomed to failure. As the saying goes, “you can’t make an omelet unless you break some eggs.” Baltimore doesn’t want its police to break any of its eggs. If this multi-faceted attack upon the police continues, how will the remaining few officers react? If they adopt the attitude that you can’t get into trouble if you don’t do anything, Baltimore will be closer to its goal. To top it all off, the so called panacea of our modern times, the consent decree, will do nothing to enhance the effectiveness of the police, but rather the opposite, it will inhibit them. It’s just another step to that “hands off” policy that I mentioned.
As to those “bad apples” within the police department (and they are in the minority), I say arrest where warranted and get rid of them. All bad apples, wherever they are found, such as Baltimore’s last two mayors, should be weeded out!
Robert Di Stefano, Abingdon
The writer is a retired major with the Baltimore City Police Department.