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David Simon: Lone Ranger

David Simon is fighting a war against the Baltimore Police Department but is anyone listening? In one week Simon has published two articles about how nobody is policing the BPD and how that job should fall to the city's journalists ("The Sheild" in Baltimore City Paper and "In Baltimore, No One Left to Press the Police" in The Washington Post). While I respect Simon's chivalry and desire to bring all this to light, I have to wonder if he is wasting his breath. Is there anything Baltimoreans hate more than change (even if it is for the better)? Baltimore's acceptance of "the way things are" has stymied its progress for decades (gas power, electric trolleys, the loss of the Colts, Memorial stadium, integration, the loss of industry, the Keswick/Baltimore Country Club dispute) and while change comes eventually, it doesn't come without a long and exhaustive struggle against the many who are more content to let things be. Good luck, Mr. Simon, and may you never encounter a Baltimore police officer in the wrong neighborhood on the wrong night (I can tell you from personal experience that it's not fun).

posted by Bagel @ 7:24 AM