Last night, speaking with Quinn, a black school teacher, he told Mescaline Franklin and I that the gangs have been calling in false threats to city schools as far away as possible from the targeted attack zones so that the Baltimore School Police will be out of position—and they are!
My connection down at the Mandowmin Shoppers just called in and said that the kids are breaking out of Frederick Douglas High School and going on the offensive. She said, "The cops are shielding up and getting ready—there's twenty of the already in them hospital. I hope the guard can turn the tide."
As Mescaline and I surveyed damage in Hamilton this morning we gathered the following intelligence:
1.The CVS, Phone store and Jewelers had been hit at 1:30 Monday night with minimal force in order to loot professionally.
2. Three businesses have boarded up to make it look like they were hit.
3. A gang scout, a prime 25 year old crew leader or hitter standing next to me as Mescaline photographed the damage and precautions, was scouting for businesses that were pretending to have already been hit and calling in strikes for tonight
4. Inchon John, the Korean liquor store owner, said that yesterday at 5 p.m., an hour before Mescaline and I went down their to drink at the bars, that five 20-25 year old black men with baseball bats and gas cans were patrolling for victims, and that the one police cruiser avoided contact with them. He was frustrated that BPD police do not have the balls of Korean police, and did say that one of his friends defied the curfew in west Baltimore and stayed open, standing at the door with two guns, and was not attacked.
5. My Libertarian neighbor is flying the American flag upside down next to a 12 by 12 foot sign that reads, The City Doesn't own you. Disobey the curfew."
For this bit of heroics he earned free copies of At The End of Masculine Time and Incubus of Your Sacred Emasculation.
6. We are back to normal police presence in Hamilton, which is one car passing through per an hour, which is in any case ineffective on a normal day to deter crime.
7. Mescaline and I were questioned by unidentified-unbadged pigs in a large luxury sedan painted in dull gray. I think they were military contractors—all about 30, big muscled up guys with military haircuts and black tactical uniforms. They warned us to get off the street. Apparently they prevented looting last night, so will hopefully prevent the gang that is targeting the remaining Hamilton businesses. They were really sneering abusive pricks who hopefully get to vent that on some hoodrats.
8. The news is reporting that looting is limited to key areas. It is not. professional, minimal damage break-ins to neighborhood businesses have hit every area of the East and Northeast.
9. Ambulance traffic in this neighborhood is at one per hour, roughly 20 times normal.
10. The curfew is only being applied to pedestrians and drivers passing National Guard checkpoints.
Stay safe my friend. Thanks for the intel.
Look out for two things in your city:
1. when the DOJ investigates your police expect riots
2. Something I missed until 2 days in, was that the gangs send in scouts. Look out for 14-16 year old black boys on bikes, and lone prime bucks with intelligent roving eyes and a casual demeanor.
“Just drive down that road until you get blown up and then report back.”
– General George S. Patton Jr., on reconnaissance troops.
“The white man thinks that because he sees no Indians there are none around.”- Indian proverb.
James, you bring up a very important point about the use of scouts by the street gangs. Winning the reconnaissance / counter- reconnaissance fight is essential to winning the main battle in any conflict. If you can detect and then destroy, thwart or spoof the enemy’s recon units you can prevent a successful attack or, at the very least, minimize the damage the enemy inflicts on you. Insurgent forces in particular, whether guerrillas or organized crime groups, tend to be very methodical and risk-adverse in the way they select targets and plan raids on them. Therefore, if they cannot case their target thoroughly, they will usually not attack it. So by being proactive in your counter-recon efforts you may even succeed in deterring an attack against yourself altogether. Well James, now that you have told us how to recognize the enemy scouts in an urban unrest scenario, do you have any advice on how to defeat or spoof their reconnaissance effort?
I really wanted to slam my steel toe boot into the spokes of his rear wheel, but then I saw headlines flash in my mind , James Zimmerman on trial for the road rash suffered by an innocent unarmed teen who had his modeling career cut tragically short.
I work on it JB. I have had a couple of countermeasure requests and will build a set of articles.
Its amazing how people outside of the military and crime do not consider recon. Talking to combat vets that's their big deal, that and movement. But most civilians just think its all t slinging led. And, like you said, the crooks are even more risk averse than a patrol in enemy territory.
Patton was such a hard case!