This past Friday night there was a ‘police involved shooting’ at the #19 bus stop at the corner of Harford and Hamilton Avenue. The media has reported that an MTA police officer—who one might suspect of having a chip on his shoulder since his small force got steamrolled in the late April Hoodrat offensive—shot a person of unknown race, age or gender in the leg. The withholding of information about the ‘suspect’ in such an encounter is usually code for unarmed, innocent, black teenager.

Speaking with witnesses who were actually watching the encounter, this non-journalist has found that the altercation was quite different then that reported by the media. The MTA cop noticed a youth packing a gun and commanded them to comply with a search, at which point the youth ran, and was grappled by the cop. During the course of the altercation the youth shot himself in the leg.

I can understand withholding the observation that the shooting of oneself in the leg with a gun which one is declining to give to his attacker, might reasonably indicate an attempt to shoot one’s attacker. As logical as this is, it is just conjecture, and I would not expect to see it in news coverage, even in a pro law-enforcement publication. However, to infer in print and broadcast media that this cop was shooting at a fleeing youth is a gross misrepresentation that is obviously calibrated to incite more unrest among the feral natives of Harm City. I read this as another indication that our liberal ruling elite and their media priesthood are dedicated to fomenting civil unrest. Since, in all of my years as a mass transit user, I have never seen a white MTA cop, I am hoping this officer is of the usual color. Police in Baltimore finally began asserting themselves over the youth thugs again this time last week. It would be a shame to have the media roll that back so soon, what with another Freddie Gray purge in our future.

Elisa works for the Baltimore City Police Department. Although I have promised to keep her job description confidential, she does do work associated with maintaining the BPD Motor Pool. According to her the damage to police vehicles and the numbers of police vehicles lost in the late April riots, was grossly underreported, and the vehicle maintenance and acquisition process is still a huge unresolved headache.

This is just another small example of the propaganda spin that has misinformed every level of the Baltimore Riot/Purge coverage. I expect, for the next round of riots, that media coverage will be more opaque and government-friendly in its obfuscation of the facts on the ground than it was for the first round of riots.

Jenny works at a convenience store in Baltimore County. It is of extreme interest to me that during the week of the riots Baltimore County Police abandoned most of their duties to focus on securing the County Seat. What is even more interesting is the fact that nighttime police coverage in the Essex Precinct [which was the most violent County precinct in 2013, and became the most improved precinct in 2014] is still around 25% of what it was prior to the riots, and that daylight coverage is slightly less than the previous normal.

Where have these cops gone?

Police no longer look in on Abner at the 7-11 after dark.

We rarely see them at the supermarket anymore, even as the panhandlers and dope fiends become more threatening to staff and customers.

I asked Jenny about this. Stuck behind the convenience store counter in a lonely spot from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., she had felt safe up until two weeks ago. The shift manger was the wife of a police officer, and authorized free fried chicken meals for police officers.

“The cops always said that they didn’t just stop in for the chicken, but were concerned about our safety. Well, since that manger quit her job and we haven’t had a replacement manager to authorize the free police meals, we have not seen a single cop—not one in two weeks! How long before the crooks figure this out and come for me—put a gun in my face?”

These are a few small glimpses of a new Baltimore Area police paradigm that in few ways resembles the one previous to the riots. I am fascinated that the County Police have so changed their habits in the wake of an unrest event that was largely confined to the city. Although there was a purge of lone white males by packs of black males in the county precinct I am discussing, it occurred in part because there was zero police coverage in that precinct while the riots and purge were ongoing in the city. I understand pulling all officers out of working class precincts to staff upper class areas during a crisis. After all, policing is at root the management of the lower classes for the benefit of the upper class. But I do not understand why normal policing has not resumed in outlying areas.

The MTA shooting occurred at the center of a hipster/yuppie enclave, a viable example of urban gentrification, five feet from one of the three businesses owned by the leader of the community association. 16 hours after the shooting, I walked by the spot, checked for blood stains and found disappointingly little, and headed over to the Hamilton bakery to meet Terry and friends for her wedding cake tasting. [I never knew there was such a thing.] This upscale bakery is run by a left coast couple who seemed leery of me when I walked in in sleeveless shirt and shorts. The man told me he heard the single shot. He was also cheered by the two police cars bracketing the two block business district with lights on, behaving like mall cops.

A hipster couple and their infant then walked in off the street from the fine dining and drinking establishment next door. I knew this because he was carrying an open beer bottle and drinking from it. He was enjoying a Fat Tire IPA. That is okay with me. Hell, I don't even believe in laws, let alone some law as nannyish as an open container law. However, I reminded Terry, if that had been White Howard, Quinn, Russ, me or Mescaline stepping out of the sports bar and walking down the sidewalk drinking a National Boh, we would have been stopped by one of those cops and either arrested or given a citation.

My inner self is cheered by the fact that this node, of this evil materialistic society I have lived in contention with my entire slave's life, has fractured apart so easily and so unconsciously based on a mere week of domestic unrest by less than 1% of the population! Perhaps the door of the decrepit America House is more rotten than I had supposed. Perhaps I'll live long enough to see it kicked in, or simply fall from the weight of its own rotten gain.