Hey James!
I am presently re-reading David Simon's Homicide and am enjoying it far more now than my initial read, thanks largely to having also read your take on the "Harm City Experience"! Also checked out Baltimore's murder stats; noticed that several include fact that deceased was "wearing mask and gloves."
Why?
Botched home burglary?
Invasion?
Stash robbery?
Best always,
-Ken Sungod
My guess is they were trying to rob a stash house or dope lab and got nixed.
On second thought, they might have been working at such a place and got popped by the cops or a rival crew, who then stole all the dope and [if cops] reported it as a murder.
Many stash houses in Baltimore are obvious from the street view and can be found with the Google Earth car!
Masked and gloved hoodrats can actually be seen walking the streets of Baltimore in warm weather! One of my friends was once attacked by two of these types, one with a gun.
There is a remote chance that these unworthies were simply out looking for trouble and found TROUBLE.
The best case scenario is this was a foiled home invasion and the cops misreported it, maybe to save someone they knew. In a recent home invasion against a cop which resulted in the invader’s death, significant legal and PR resources had to be marshaled to quash an uproar. Maybe the cops have decided to keep such successful defenses by theirs and law abiding defenders to themselves to stave off investigations.
Simon's work is really good—read it in the 1990s.
Hope you are doing well, Ken.
Take care.
James
The Boned Zone: Surviving Urban Predation
