Mondawmin is a West Baltimore mall and shopping center with a deep history.

The name is from an extinct American Indian dialect and means ‘cornfield’. Before all of you guilt ridden wussy white people get all misty eyed over the extinction of the local natives, I would point out that the process was already well under way. When the Ark and the Dove arrived in 1637 the Iroquois Indians of the Pennsylvania region were driving the Chesapeake Bay Algonquin tribes to extinction. The locals were primarily peaceful and could not wait to throw themselves at the feet of the Europeans in hopes of protection. These natives eventually intermarried with free blacks and have accounted for a significant minority of ‘red bone’ blacks in the area, particularly along old waterfront communities.

Fast forward 350 years to 1987 and the supermarket at Mandawmin, run by a Hebrew concern and staffed by mostly Anglo gentiles, was in the middle of a black-on-black war zone. Employees were robbed, beaten, abducted and raped by local blacks to the extent that the store shut down and, with no Korean family large enough to staff the facility, the store was not taken over by another outfit. Even the Stop, Shop and Rob ghetto food store chain owned by a black man, saw the crime at the Mondawmin location as prohibitive to running a business.

All through the 1990s there was no supermarket at this location. Eventually, the company I worked for hired a lobbyist to bribe a senator for a tax break on breaking ground and make a deal with Baltimore City to provide uniformed on duty police protection [paid for at the overtime rate by the retailer]. Three employees I now well, Miss Ezz, Butch and The Mack Daddy, as well as Gorilla Wall Paul, made this their economic home. I recall Miss Ezz telling me that she cried on opening day, when elderly blacks from the neighborhood, who had not had access to a supermarket in over a decade, literally danced in the aisles and praised the Lord.

Many of the stories in Harm City over the past five years have happened on the old Indian Corn Field.

Last week, however, topped the rest. While the cop and the manager were busy up front with a Tide bandit [Two at a time shoplifters load up entire carts with Tide for resale at bus stops and bars and make a break for it. To make matters worse, Tide is a money loser for retailers, who make mere nickels on a $10 purchase.] a man with a crowbar in his back pack crept back to the pharmacy, which, at this hour in the evening, was locked down behind a rolling sheet metal door. He popped the door, grabbed some Benadryl and ran, making good with his escape, but was roundly criticized by customers and staff for not taking any narcotics. There is so much narcotics traffic in this neighborhood that record cash business is done after food stamps run out and 100 times the normal amount of garlic powder is sold per week, as it is used to cut dope in order to throw off drug sniffing dogs. If I managed this joint I'd build a massive garlic powder display hung with sun glasses, fitted hats, triple-X t-shirts and prepaid phones. Come on Mike—you want a bonus or what? Get imaginative and cater to your clientele.

The next day the manager was checking prices at the Target across the lot when he noticed a Tide bandit and pointed him out to store security. While he was away a drama was unfolding on the first day of Free Money.

A forty-something ghetto mamma was in line with her twenty-something son and daughter. She was loudly screaming such things to her son as, “Nigger, I’m not paying for your fried chicken with my card—and your ass betta not be stealin’ it!”

After a few outbursts like this the cop was ready. Sure enough, after the lady paid for her heaping cartload of free food, her son followed her out with a double armload of fried chicken boxes; about $30 worth of the ill-fated bird.

The white cop blocked his way and said, “May I see a receipt for that chicken.”

The black man said, “Get out of my way.”

The white cop said, “I need to see a receipt for that chicken.”

The black man said, “I’m walking out with this chicken.”

The cop said, “I will fucking taze the shit out of you!”

The black man repeated his claim to the right for free fried chicken, apparently secure in the fact that since Brutha Jesse and Brutha Al like fried chicken too, they will be sure to get him a big law suit against the cop when they come to town. He then tried to push past the cop, who seized the chicken, which spilled all over the place as the black man cussed out the cop and went on his righteous way, assured of the support of the News, the DOJ, and the President.

When the cop talked to Butch he said, “If I touched anything but the fried chicken I’d lose my job and my pension. I’ve got two years left until retirement dealing with these animals—then I’m out.”

And so the Corn Field remains, as it did for the now extinct natives, a place where one cannot expect to earn his living or trade with his neighbors, without some violent savage taking what is yours, unless there is a white man with a gun to protect you.

When the white man has had enough of protecting others, what then?

Stoning Baboons The mythic ghetto origins of Gorilla Wall Paul is covered within this extensive survey of racial violence in Baltimore.