On Memorial Day evening I stopped by a friend’s house in the Cedonia area about three miles to my east. I had been out in Harford County with family for the holiday. What I saw in the majority black working class area of Cedonia was interesting, in that police were not visible and men were drinking in the streets and on sidewalks. On the way home I was actually frightened by some of the characters I saw skulking about just as darkness fell.

Hookers were openly doing business in a gas station parking lot.

Groups of teens and young men were gathered in alleys keeping an eye on people walking up the side streets. Each one of these groups had a single bicyclist mounted on a BMX style bike. I was followed twice and then, when I was seen to be aware, as I stopped every half block and locked all around, the youths tracking me broke off and returned by the way they had come.

Cookie told me that on Sunday Night she had difficulty driving on a busy secondary street that was so packed with double parked cars and people drinking and dancing [this normally requires a block party permit] that it took her many hair raising minutes to travel a few blocks. She said that the partygoers were generally genial and did not harass the whites. The fascinating aspect was the lack of a police presence. It seems like the New York brand of lifestyle policing [arresting for loitering, open container and lack of I.D.] imported into Baltimore by the New York cop [Norris]often credited with reducing crime in Baltimore, has gone the way of Rome.

In the past week the Baltimore Police Commissioner has held at least one news conference for local news only—no doubt under political pressure to get Baltimore out of the headlines—and an anonymous city cop has given CNN an interview, indicating that the morale has never been lower.

Also, the none fatal shooting rate has increased another 6%, now standing at 66% more than 2014. Arrests continue to drop and crime continues to increase, particularly black-on-black gang violence.

Although the city administration has tried to depict the violence surge in Baltimore as confined to the West Side, specifically the area of the riots, the increase in violent crime has been citywide, just as the unreported purge attacks during the riots occurred across a broad geographic area.

The number of males exhibiting a desire to engage in opportunistic aggression is greatly increased. Moving quickly, and in a state of awareness, is of paramount importance in such environments.