City On Fire - The Prelude

With so much to talk about regarding the Baltimore riots, I decided to break things into segments (or chapters). The downtown violence on Saturday almost seems like a distant memory after what went down last night. But I've got to start somewhere, so here we go.....

On Saturday, the Freddie Gray protest kicked off in the downtown area. Emotions were high but the protest remained mostly peaceful. However, as the evening approached, a segment of the protesters migrated towards Camden Yards where the Orioles were preparing to play the Red Sox. This is where things began to spiral out of control.

As Oriole fans primed themselves with cold Natty Boh's outside of Pickle's Pub, they clashed with a group of protesters. Trash cans were thrown into the crowed area by the protesters. This caused tempers to flair and several brawls ensued.

Across the street, a large group of Baltimore City cops were positioned at one of the main entrances at Camden Yards. As the angry crowd "peacefully"  protested by spitting on and throwing rocks, bottles and other things at the police, the cops were basically instructed to just stand there and take the assault. It was almost surreal to see large metal barricades being freely thrown at the police. How much of this nonsense were these guys expected to take?

A short time later, nearby police cars were vandalized and random drivers were being terrorized by the roaming mobs. After the sun went down, several business were looted. During all of the mayhem, the clock was ticking on the Oriole/Red Sox game. Eventually, tens of thousands of baseball fans would be exiting the stadium. As a precaution, it was announced that, for safety reasons, no one should exit the stadium until further notice. So, basically, a group of thugs now had 30,000 baseball fans held hostage inside Camden Yards.

Meanwhile outside, traffic was gridlocked in the city due to idiots lying in the middle of the streets. Additionally, they disrupted service on the city's light rail system.

While I was watching all of this stuff go down, I kept wondering who was in charge. To allow this nonsense to escalate to a boiling point was hard to comprehend. Thankfully, the baseball game went into extra innings which allowed things to simmer down a bit. By the time the fans left the stadium, traffic was finally moving and the light rail was back in business. Although there a few reported incidents, most of the fans were able to make it home safely.

During a press conference on late Saturday night, Mayor Rawlings-Blake made a comment where she appeared to say that the peaceful protesters were "given space to destroy". Was Baltimore's head honcho actually giving the green light for random acts of violence? Whether this was a Freudian slip or maybe just a brain fart, the Mayor's comment has since been a source of discussion (and scrutiny) across the national news stations.

Additionally, we were told the "agitators" were mostly from out of the area even though the majority of the arrested individuals were Baltimore residents. If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone is trying to blow smoke up our asses.

Things eventually quieted down and the city went to sleep. The next day, the only reported violence was the 18-7 beat-down that the Orioles gave to the Red Sox.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, but things were about to take a turn for the worse......

(to be continued)

kw