Baltimore is Burning

Written By Briton Ryle

Posted April 28, 2015

Like Ferguson most recently, Baltimore is America’s latest war zone. Looting, fires, random violence against citizens, rock-throwing, window-smashing, car-burning… People are angry.

A couple weeks ago, on April 12, a young man named Freddie Gray was chased down and brought into custody by Baltimore police. Less than an hour later, 911 was called because Gray was in distress.

In fact, his back was broken and his larynx crushed. It’s been reported that his spinal cord was 80% severed. He slipped into a coma and died a week later. 

Gray had been arrested several times before on drug charges. But that day, April 12, he wasn’t detained for anything but running. The story goes that Gray and a police officer known to Gray exchanged a glance, and Gray took off. An hour later, he was as good as dead. 

People are angry. 

Gray wasn’t charged with anything — at least anything that has been reported so far. I don’t know what happened. I don’t if Gray resisted arrest or was abusive or what. But I know how it looks…

It looks an awful lot like Michael Brown, who may have been a troublemaker in Ferguson but was found with at least six bullets in his back.

It looks a lot like Walter Scott in North Charleston, who had a warrant for nonpayment of child support and ran from a cop who shot him in the back and then planted a taser on him, as if that justifies anything. 

It looks like there’s a pattern here. It looks like cops are killing black men. At least, they’re not letting up with the illegal chokehold when the suspect says he can’t breathe — like Eric Garner in New York, who was put in a chokehold and later died for the offense of selling illegal cigarettes.

It looks like people are right to be angry. I’m angry about it, too.

I’m a white man in Baltimore. I don’t know what it’s like for a policeman to be my enemy. As a white man, I’ve always believed the police were there to protect and to serve. But who, exactly, are they protecting?

I watched the dash cam from Officer Slager when he pulled Scott over for a broken taillight in North Charleston. The cop wasn’t condescending or abusive from what I could tell. During the brief conversation, Mr. Scott’s story was a bit confused. Yes, he just bought the car… no, wait, he’s test-driving it and might buy it…

As a father and former teenager, I well know the telltale signs that someone is making up a story up as they go along.

It’s almost funny after the cop goes back to his car to check Scott’s driver’s license, when Scott’s car door opens and he takes off running. I mean, the cop has the car and Scott’s driver’s license. It’s not like he can really just get away. Almost funny, except you already know what’s about to happen…

A short time later, on cell phone video, we see the cop after he’s caught up with Scott. Scott turns to run again, and that’s when the horrific happens: The cop pulls his gun and pop-pop-pop — Scott falls, dead.

We now know Scott was a wanted man. He owed child support. And he ran because he didn’t want to go to jail for it.

Of course, with a warrant out on him, he couldn’t get a regular job to pay the child support if he was so inclined. And without a job, he’s not paying off anything.

After initially having the support of his fellow officers and superiors, the cop has been charged with murder because of the cell phone video. But the question remains: who was that cop protecting? Not himself.

Scott was clearly trying to get away. In neither the dash cam video nor the cell phone video did Scott appear aggressive. Neither did the cop…

Ours is Not to Wonder Why 

Baltimore is known as a blue-collar town. But it’s not really, not anymore.

Beth Steel at Sparrow’s Point is long gone. Most of the piers that once loaded cargo on and off ships are now crowded with restaurants or converted to concert pavilions. 

Those steel jobs are probably in China now. And larger, more efficient ports have siphoned off much of Baltimore’s cargo business. 

Like many American cities, Baltimore is confronting injustice. As I said, I don’t know what it’s like to have the police as my enemy.

But I know that when a man dies at the hands of police officers — a man who by all accounts made no overt aggressive moves against those officers — that is injustice. 

I moved to Baltimore in 1997. The city was losing 10,000 people a year. 10% of the city population was addicted to drugs. The jobs were leaving, the city was dying. That was an injustice then, and it still is today.  

But some injustice is harder to see, harder to explain in concrete terms, and harder to correct.

America lost 8.8 million jobs between 2008 and 2009. We haven’t gotten all of them back. And most Americans aren’t making any more money today than they were 10 years ago. Thousands of small businesses failed.

Oh, but the world has 852 new billionaires since the financial crisis.

Over 5 million Americans lost their homes during the financial crisis. Many of these homes were bought by Blackstone and Berkshire Hathaway and are now being offered for rent by these firms.

In 2009 — the height of the crisis — Goldman Sachs had a $16 billion compensation pool, just a year after a $10 billion government bailout. On average, Goldman employees made $498,000 in 2009, up from $317,000 in 2008.

Not one banker went to jail, not one Wall Street CEO got more than a slap on the wrist. Smug congressmen sat on investigative subcommittees, lobbing softball questions and expressing their outrage at their Wall Street accomplices… 

You’re damn right people are angry. 

Since 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security has been steadily fortifying local police departments with millions of rounds of hollow-point bullets, Kevlar body armor, automatic weapons, sniper rifles, and armored vehicles.  

Who are they protecting?

Life is a Series of Choices

I understand that America is a country of laws. I understand that we are all the products of a long series of our own choices. I take personal responsibility very seriously.

I know that Baltimore has paid almost $6 million in police brutality settlements in the course of a few years.

I also understand that the super-rich and elites of this country don’t play by the same rules. It’s been demonstrated time and again that corporations can lobby Congress and get laws passed that benefit them at our expense.

Corporations and the wealthy elite can avoid taxes in ways we cannot. Millionaire CEOs can move jobs overseas, make more money, and get bigger bonuses. The powerful and influential can come away from traffic stops with a warning, where somebody else might get a beat down.

This is more than a “new normal” for America. Something is broken… and people are angry.

Now, I’m going to end this with a profound statement from a member of one of Baltimore’s wealthiest families. His name is John Angelos. He’s the son of Baltimore Orioles owner and big-time billionaire lawyer Peter Angelos.

Yes, the system has served him well. If you have seen these words already, forgive me for reprinting them:

I agree with [the] point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.

That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.

The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, an ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ball game irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.

Until next time,

Until next time,

brit''s sig

Briton Ryle

follow basic @BritonRyle on Twitter

follow basic The Wealth Advisory on Youtube

follow basic The Wealth Advisory on Facebook

A 21-year veteran of the newsletter business, Briton Ryle is the editor of The Wealth Advisory income stock newsletter, with a focus on top-quality dividend growth stocks and REITs. Briton also manages the Real Income Trader advisory service, where his readers take regular cash payouts using a low-risk covered call option strategy. He is also the managing editor of the Wealth Daily e-letter. To learn more about Briton, click here.

Angel Pub Investor Club Discord - Chat Now