Demonstrators who descended on Camden Yards on Saturday night did some damage to Rick Dempsey's popular restaurant in the B&O Warehouse, but Dempsey said the damage could have been worse and expressed understanding about the frustration that has been generated by the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.
"Overall, you kind of understand. Everybody's all fired up and it just happened to be in our area, so, cracked window, we got away with that,'' Dempsey said. "I'm happy it wasn't worse than that and that nobody got hurt."
"It's just one of those kind of things that happened. I'm not too upset about it, really. A lot more damage could have been done. We got away with a cracked window. Somebody kicked the door and cracked the window. I guess it was a little bit scary for the people that were in there at the time."
Dempsey said that he was alerted to the problem early in Saturday night's game between the Orioles and Red Sox on a night when Oriole Park had to be locked down temporarily because of the continuing unrest outside. He may have lost a window, but he didn't lose his sense of humor.
"My manager called me on the phone and said, 'It's getting a little scary out here right now. I just wanted to know if we were still open for business,'" Dempsey said. "I said, 'Yeah, see if they want to buy a hamburger or something while they're throwing things around. They might get hungry."