When the history of the riot of April 2015 is written, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will not only be vindicated, but will be hailed as a courageous leader.
In a situation with no perfect solutions, Mayor Rawlings-Blake had to weigh the balance between property and lives. She opted to allow property to be destroyed while preserving lives.
To unleash deadly police force to stop the looters would have left no middle ground. Nervous individual officers would be allowed to make life and death decisions.
In the background are elements ready to seize on such a conflict to instigate citywide guerrilla warfare. As we have learned from conflicts around the world, armies cannot win these types of struggles and you cannot make peace with disparate entities. Chaos wins.
To the National Guard and State Police, looters are faceless enemies occupying a place to which they have no real allegiance. To the mayor, the looters are bad actors but still her people. Even their lives matter.
Arthur Pierce, Randallstown