8 people shot in retaliation in Baltimore: police

[groundloop]

Source: CBS News

Baltimore police said eight people, including a 3-year-old girl, were shot in east Baltimore in what police said was a retaliatory attack.

None of the victims had life-threatening injuries, a Baltimore police spokesman tweeted. There are three suspects, one with a shotgun and two with handguns, police spokesman T.J. Smith tweeted. The victims included a father and daughter, according to Smith.

Police said in a press conference that they believed the shooting was a retaliatory act for an incident that happened over Labor Day weekend.

8 shooting victims, including 3 y/o. All non-life threatening. Limited suspect info. Contact 410-396-2221 now w/tips. @BaltimorePolice

— T.J. Smith (@TJSmithMedia) September 25, 2016

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/multiple-people-shot-in-east-baltimore-police/

[oberliner]

1. Good lord

This is horrifying.

[mucifer]

2. 22 people shot in Chicago this weekend. It's only Sunday morning

It's not an uncommon number for us. It is way out of control

[christx30]

4. So what can be done about it?

Any action taken by the police would be called excessive and over-the-top.
Community leaders, people that live in those neighborhoods are the ones that need to be doing it, but how are you going to tell those teenagers to turn away from violence, drugs, and crime if all of their popular culture promotes it?
Personally, I think the cops need to brutally crack down on gangs and drug crime.
Any gang members and drug dealers that resist arrest are shot. Any people that riot over the deaths are put in the hospital.
Anyone that promotes the "no snitching" culture should be arrested and imprisoned for obstruction of justice.
Or just keep doing things like they have been. Watch kids being shot by idiots trying to be like 50 Cent. Let the gangs take over the whole damn city. Just keep that crap up in Chicago and away from Texas.

[philosslayer]

5. Way to blame the victims

A combination of racial injustice, economic injustice and police violence have gotten us to where we are. Yet you are blaming the communities "culture". Shame on you.

[Sand Rat Expat]

7. So those injustices excuse flagrant disregard for the law and wanton murder?

Because these gang members who are fueling this unprecedented violence in Chicago are economically disadvantaged and oppressed, we should just... do what, exactly? Let them keep slaughtering each other and killing innocent bystanders every now and again?

If cracking down on the worst offenders isn't a valid solution, then how would you propose that this problem be addressed?

[philosslayer]

8. Very simple

First. Stop the armed occupation by police. Second, begin a constructive dialogue between city government and residents. Third, provide jobs, resources, opportunity and hope. There is no silver bullet solution. But the current methods of dealing with the violence clearly aren't working. And are likely making things worse.

[Sand Rat Expat]

9. I seem to recall you castigating the police when they dialed it back in Chicago.

They cut back on their patrols, and as a result crime spiked. They ended their armed occupation, to use your words, and when the predictable result occurred, you, as I recall, called them cowards. I think there was even a death as a result of the reduced patrols, and you said the cops had that blood on their hands. So which is it, philosslayer?

Secondly, the city government is elected by the citizens. If the city government sucks, then perhaps that has something to do with the voting patterns, or lack thereof, of the citizens. If the city government isn't responsive to the citizens' concerns, then it is incumbent upon those citizens to vote the city government out and replace it with new leadership that is responsive.

Finally, when citizens riot and burn shit to the ground in their own neighborhoods, businesses are going to stay away. It's simple economics. If I'm forced to accept a huge risk as part of opening a business in Neighborhood A, or much less of a risk in Neighborhood B, I'm going to set up shop in Neighborhood B.

When you say "provide jobs" what do you mean exactly? Should companies be forced to open locations in these areas and simply accept the higher risks that go with doing so?

If businesses stay away because riots are more likely to occur and because the area itself has a higher crime rate, then there aren't going to be as many jobs in that area, are there? And if there are fewer jobs, there are fewer resources, fewer opportunities, and less hope.

And then when the police pull back and the crime rate spikes, the area is even less attractive to businesses. Or if the police try to crack down on crime, and the residents riot and burn shit the moment an officer-involved shooting happens, the area is even less attractive to businesses.

Simply put, businesses and jobs have fled these areas for a reason. That reason has less to do with racism and much more to do with it just being a bad investment to set up shop there, when safer and more lucrative options exist elsewhere.

Also, I like how you tout your solution as "simple" and then mere moments later point out that there's no silver bullet solution.

[Dreamer Tatum]

10. So the presence of an armed policeman causes people to shoot each other?

Ridiculous.

And no one is going to provide a job to anyone in a war zone. People who live there have to get their shit together and decide they've had enough of living in a shooting gallery.

[spike jones]

11. The "no snitching" culture

Doesn't that define the police force?

[romanic]

12. Police can be as forceful as they want.

Fact of the matter is, it won't matter.

It all starts at home. Broken homes with one parent, no father or mother fogures to guide them, drugs/alcohol/etc, and no set of rules or morals will continue to provide the hoods with vulnerable kids yearning to be apart of a "family", aka the gangs.

[Skittles]

13. you think there is no gang activity in Texas?

what kind of a naive ARE you?

[Odin2005]

14. Your racism is showing.

[christx30]

16. It's not racism to point out that things are not getting better/

As of Labor Day weekend, Baltimore had 216 murders for the year. How would YOU stop it? More of the same kind of behavior and programs that caused the problem in the first place?
If you don't think the police can do good, then why did the murder rate jump when they took a hands-off approach after Freddie Gray?
But that's why I included the last part of my message. The "screw-it" section allows for keeping things as/is, with the understanding that we'll probably hit 300 or more homicides this year. It puts the onus on the "more-of-the-same" crowd to fix the problem and protect innocent lives from drug addicts and gang members, like the children that were injured in the shooting in the OP.
So how do you plan to fight crime in Baltimore, so we can emulate that in other parts of the country hit by high crime?
So do you want to go with actually doing something to stop the gang war that's killing hundreds of people, or do you want to just keep on letting them die? I know! Let's ban guns! Except that Heller says you can't.. And even if you could, what do you do with someone that refuses to comply? So we go to arrest them, and they resist arrest. So you're back to either letting them go or doing whatever harm you have to do to them to force them to comply.

The fact is that someone is going to be in charge of the city. Either the mayor and city council working together for the betterment of the decent people of the city, or the gangs, drug users/dealers, and people that would burn down a CVS out of misplaced anger.

"Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier somewhere else."
---- The Joker, Batman (1989)

[romanic]

17. There was nothing racist about your comments.

Some people like Odin have no clue about the word. No need to explain yourself.

[riversedge]

3. Horrible to see this-and for them to take it out on kids-innocent bystanders. Get angy, get

a gun and start shooting. damn!

[Igel]

6. Somebody's not telling them to put a lid on their anger.

They are certainly in touch with *their* feelings. They deserve respect, I guess, but probably think it's beneath them to show any to other people. All rights, no obligations.

It's also likely somebody's telling them that it's okay to act on their anger, and to act in this way. That's something they don't learn in schools and schools really have trouble teaching to those who dismiss school as oppression. But this isn't how you recover your honor or dignity, at least not in mainstream American culture for the last century or so; it is how you go into the penal system for a good long time.


Not only that, but it shows that they assumed that those they were after were first and foremost members of a group, and that collectively punishing the group is a fine way to doing things, that individual identity is thoroughly wrapped up in some salient single group marker. Their gang, their family, their neighborhood, their skin color, their speech, whatever. It's hard to defend "I'm mostly a member of my group" for most social or political views and condemn this with a straight face. (Now, for petty little things, yeah; I'm a teacher, and when dealing with students and school administrators that's my primary identity; I play violin, and when there's a conductor that's my identity. I'm a home owner, and that's one of my identities. But I have a lot and they shift constantly.)

That "one identity is paramount and unites you with those with like identity" is the kind of thinking behind the worst of the racist stereotypes that we (and probably the shooters) would condemn. My mother, for instance, believed all blacks were thieves. Why? Because when she was 15 or 16 the black clerk at her step-father's store was a thief. He represented everybody that was like him, his crime or sin was the crime or sin of everybody in his group (made worse that his theft was just letting other blacks come into the store and take whatever they needed while her family was at church and the store was supposedly closed). Her mother wasn't feeling well one day at church, they returned early, and he was homeless 10 minutes later. My mother's thinking is very KKK-like in "there's one group identity and everybody shares the properties of everybody else in that group." Such drivel.