For with support from Google News Initiative x Northwestern University's Data-Driven Reporting Project:
Part 1 in a series of stories looking at the past 30+ years of police strategy, failure, spending, and dysfunction
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brandon soderberg
@notrivia
I report on cops, guns, & drugs. I cowrote “I Got A Monster." The "I Got a Monster" documentary is out now / brandonsoderberg@gmail.com
brandon soderberg’s posts
quick how much does it cost to fly a surveillance helicopter around Baltimore
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“This is the Baltimore City Police Dept. helicopter unit. Please exit the swimming pool. There is no lifeguard on duty. For your safety, exit the swimming pool.”
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"I do not 'humanize' her. I do not make an attempt to 'humanize' her. She is simply a human being, period."
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I was on Peacock and stumbled upon this On Death Row documentary series that Werner Herzog did. This prosecutor made some snarky comment in passing about Herzog humanizing a person on death row, and Herzog made sure to get the last word.
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this is a very specific kind of "edgy" "quirky" kinda punk with absolute dogshit politics that's really familiar to anyone who has ever attended a community meeting in a gentrifying neighborhood
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Kyrsten Sinema, the Senate’s most colorful member, posts a pic of herself on instagram rocking a “F*** Off” ring & sipping what looks like Sangria
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“Every single swing seat member that co-sponsored Medicare for All won their reelection.” - @AOC
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"NOBODY DEFUNDED THE POLICE: A STUDY"
"A study of budgets in over 400 American cities over the last 5 years shows that...there was no mass defunding of police. Police depts got the same average cut of the city budget in '21 as they did in previous years"
As someone about to publish a book about Baltimore cops with the title "I Got A Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad," I gotta (briefly) address Bret Stephens' op-ed about Baltimore which does not reckon with the full extent of police corruption here
The way to look at the “news” that Jacob Blake had a knife in his car is the police have had a few days to spin this and all they could come up with is that he had a knife in his car
Confederate Monuments coming down tonight; right now. Lee Jackson has caution tape around it. Police here
Network news and "big deal" reporters scouring video of the fascists in the Capitol and naming the fascists is what independent journalists and anti-fascists have been doing for years while the the news ignored the problem or straight-up named antifa as the "real" problem
I imagine to people who come to Baltimore (especially Hopkins student parents) these vacants confirm a negative sense of the city. Few realize these were liveable buildings until Hopkins bought them up, displaced people, sat on them (some for decades), and let them crumble
obvious comparison for reducing police budgets is military budget: a deeply politicized money burner that uses its failures and limitations as the argument for why it can't ever be changed or have its budget reduced and when it does a poor job that's proof it needs even more $$$
Eight years ago today, Freddie Gray died. On Apr. 12, Gray was chased by cops, grabbed, and thrown into a police van. He died in the hospital a week later on April 19. Each year, I post these photos I took during the first few days of the Baltimore Uprising.
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Want to end capitalism? Consider getting a job at Wal-Mart and change the system from within!
Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force was operating a vast criminal conspiracy in the department while DOJ was here doing its civil rights investigation. DOJ did not uncover any of GTTF's crimes during that investigation. DOJ and GTTF were right next to one another in police HQ
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"defense against disorder," a disgusting phrase I fear we will see deployed more and more by the press as more law and order psychos kill more people for simply existing on the same train as them twitter.com/AP/status/1654
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I've sad this a bunch but politicians are framing increased penalties for guns, new task forces out to get guns, as a progressive shift away from the war on drugs but the war on guns is doing the same thing: disproportionately incarcerating Black men.
hey everybody — So we're starting a new weekly paper in Baltimore baltimorebeat.com the first issue (print! yes!) is out 11/15
Hello the cops shouldn’t get to decide who is a member of the press
Wow didn’t know I only pay taxes on the things I think I should pay taxes on. Looking forward to no longer paying for the US to bomb countries and for the police to beat and kill people
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Replying to @mstratford
Pelosi also questioned the policy wisdom of cancelling student loan debt:
“Suppose…your child just decided they, at this time, [do] not want to go to college but you’re paying taxes to forgive somebody else’s obligations. You may not be happy about that."
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a Democratic mayor in a major American city using some of the most dehumanizing language one could use to talk about people who use drugs
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Mayor Lori Lightfoot compares some parts of Chicago to a scene from "the Walking Dead" due to heroin/opioid abuse
Mostly bc of my age here—I was 16 in 2001–I’m sure but my peers rewriting the Afghanistan War as bungled by well-intentioned Americans rather than an intentional, deeply cynical destabilization of a region to spread empire that was never gonna lead to “victory” is wild
Police in Jersey mad they can't use claims of weed smell to violate 4a rights and harass teens
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NJ State PBA responds to vote today by legislature. Bill creates more confusion and officers are urged to limit all marijuana enforcement.
Guess it should've been obvious that after the U.S. straight-up refused to materially help people during the pandemic (leaving vulnerable people even more vulnerable), a crime “spike” would be contrived to get people on board with putting all of these vulnerable people in prison
Less than 48 hours after this photo op, Baltimore Police shot and killed someone.
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Celebrating @BmoreCeasefire weekend with our community! #Unity #CommunityPolicing #MyBmore
you really don't have to immediately buy into this "he meant to use his taser" excuse
Context for today's march in Baltimore. It is organized by the People's Power Assembly, a radical and grassroots group. Like Monday's huge march, organized by Baltimore's Youth w/ Bmore Bloc and like yesterday's Black Trans Lives March, this will likely not be hugging police etc.
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These cops committed crimes and created crimes. They robbed from people, they stole drugs from people, they sold drugs, they planted guns, they beat people up all part of a criminal conspiracy (that's the fed gov't saying that) that goes back nearly a decade at least.
Our racist dress code resulted in some racism, so we have adjusted it so that we can no longer be racist to children 12 and under
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Today, we learned of an incredibly disturbing incident that occurred at one of our restaurants in Baltimore, Ouzo Bay. We sincerely apologize to Marcia Grant, her son & everyone impacted by this painful incident. This situation does not represent who or what Atlas stands for.
On July 8, 2016 Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force stalked Ronald and Nancy Hamilton at a Home Depot, then kidnapped them, took them to their house and robbed them. Todau almost exactly four years later a BPD Sgt is charged with kidnapping and extorting a home contractor.
I see the credulous local press is so enamored with Larry Hogan that they're not gonna pushback on this bonkers reopening of the state which will, like all Hogan policies, devastate the poor and the working class who will have to go back to work or lose unemployment etc
Police aren't abolished in Baltimore. Not even sure what he is trying to say here. City is under federal consent decree and enacted a number of conventional Obama-era style reforms (which police fought against). Police did not largely slowdown in Baltimore—my book shows this.
I post these every April 19—the day Freddie Gray died. Images from the first few days of the Baltimore Uprising. They’re not “good” photos at all but they capture to me, some of the energy of that moment.
Second time in two weeks someone has pointed to a situation in Baltimore where citizens have had to direct traffic because cops didn’t show up
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The @BaltimorePolice can’t step up and do their jobs directing traffic at a malfunctioning traffic light by the stadium on a Ravens gameday, so the squeegee boys had to take charge. How much did their budget increase again this year? @notrivia
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At the end of March, an ad for a cannabis festival was painted over Baltimore's famous "Defund BPD [Baltimore Police Dept]" billboard. As of this morning, the billboard has been reclaimed
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What Stephens argues needs to return is the kind of plainclothes policing these cops did (when they weren't robbing people or while they were also robbing people). But I already explained how this war on citizens policing is terrible IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
This is the best advertisement for why police don’t want people to be able to access their records and why people should absolutely be able to access police records
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Got to CPD HQ for the end of Ja’Mal Green’s action. When I got there, he was going down the line of officers guarding the building, reading their individual lists of complaints
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I spend a lot of time discussing the tools for stopping Black people we need to take from police—cannabis smell, belief person possesses a weapon—but gotta stress as long as police exist they will find a reason no matter how inane like “air freshener around the rearview mirror”
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Replying to @maxnesterak
Samira Hassan says Brooklyn Center police stopped her for having an air freshener around her review mirror last week. She lives in the building that police have now encircled
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Because I keep seeing this: The "shorty" in the video of Baltimore's Mayor Brandon Scott is activist Duane "Shorty" Davis. He is a protest institution unto himself and is a tireless advocate for the city.
He is also an artist. My piece on him from 2015 webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache
Coverage of the man who was shot and killed yesterday after he attacked someone squeegee'ing is being spruced up by click/clout-hungry journalists as something important or "complex" but it is a standard Baltimore story: Media takes white death more seriously than Black death.
The kid from Mighty Ducks 2 and First Kid being a crypto guy with connections to Epstein who is funding NYPD video game trucks that encourage teens to hang out and let off stream and do whatever feels like a pg 278 revelation in a “Chaos”-like book someone writes in 40 years
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The NYPD’s two newly announced “gaming trucks” are funded by billionaire Trump donor Brock Pierce who:
Was named in two civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of underage boys
Spoke at a 2011 conference in the Virgin Islands supported by Jeffrey Epstein
Was named in two civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of underage boys
Spoke at a 2011 conference in the Virgin Islands supported by Jeffrey Epstein
this is what "law and order" means and has always meant btw
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For the second consecutive day Trump seems to endorse extrajudicial killings by federal forces
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nothing the police in Baltimore do can possibly be their fault. Not solving murders isn't their fault. The feds pulling out isn't their fault. Truly amazing to be a $500 million-plus a year organization that's unaccountable but also always needs more help
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BPD staffing is so short that the FBI is removing their Agents & assets from the Citywide Robbery Unit because the BPD failed to uphold their end of the bargain to staff Task Force Officer positions. Better pay and working conditions=increased hiring and retention #CityinCrisis
This week released a list of 300 Baltimore cops with possible "credibility issues." On the list is Melvin Hill, a notorious former cop. Some of his disciplinary records were leaked to me. For , I summarize the shocking allegations
Students have chained themselves to railings at Garland Hall as per of JHU Occupation and have said they are "fully occupying the building" now
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One thing that is very clear reporting on dope in Baltimore is the amount of suburban and rural Trump types who come into Baltimore and trade guns (and dirtbikes) for dope
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Can you imagine how things may have been a bit different over the past four years if there had been this kind of energy all along instead of at the moment where it's safe—and "Patriotic"—for journos to call this shit out (they are still doing a mostly poor job btw)
No one should be in prison, let alone in prison for 100s of years but we can all see why Baltimoreans are angry about this. To see sentencing reform arguments used for dirty cops who ruined many lives while those whose lives they ruined don't get the same treatment is an insult.
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Two former Baltimore Police officers sentenced to a combined 454 years in federal prison for shaking down citizens in the early 2000s had their prison terms reduced to 20 years by a judge on Monday.
baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-
If you wanna understand Baltimore politics it is Council tonight probably voting to rename a park after Harriet Tubman and undoubtedly confirming a police commissioner who has three fatal shootings under his belt and some serious IAD concerns. City loves the symbolic change.
Criminal charges filed against Baltimore cop Steven Angelini for selling oxy, ammo, "ghost guns," more. Just the latest example of Baltimore Police—under a Consent Decree and according to BPD commanders making "progress"—continuing to deal drugs, guns.
Baltimore! Be on the lookout for an 8-page preview edition of Baltimore Beat. They are beginning to circulate today (just left some at Remington).
Our first full issue is out August 10.
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We should absolutely abolish prisons. Besides it being the right thing to do, it is far less extreme than locking people up at the rate we do especially when all evidence points to it not being reformative or a deterrent. We are better people when we don't put people in cages. twitter.com/Lis_Smith/stat
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here is an especially blatant example of how reform is a money-generating scam for the police
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After months of calls to “defund the police” Philly Police union proposed a new contract with 5% “accountability pay” bonus for using body cameras, and 5% “residency pay” for officers living in the city they serve. twitter.com/CMThomasPHL/st…
Just a reminder that my book about cops running a criminal enterprise inside of the Baltimore Police Department is out next month—July 21. Pre order it from your favorite bookstore or via Bookshop bookshop.org/books/i-got-a-
this is disgusting
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I'm standing with the people of Israel who are coming under bombardment attacks, and condemn the Hamas terrorists. The people of NYC will always stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel who face down terrorism and persevere.
In other news, these started popping up around the city this morning
Hey everybody, some news: as announced this morning on Publisher's Marketplace, and I are writing a book about the Gun Trace Task Force together. It is called "I've Got a Monster" and will be published by St. Martin's
it's really neat how Johns Hopkins University is still itching to create its own private police force to further harass and possibly kill my neighbors and also is right now by letting students come back facilitating super spreader events to kill more of my neighbors
Imagine if reporters in Baltimore covered shootings as the police failing to do their job instead of (explicitly or tacitly) an example pf why more police are needed. I get it though, when you lack critical thinking skills, racist scaremongering feigning outrage is the easy pivot
glad we spend more than a half-a-billi a year on Baltimore Police. I mean who else is gonna...tell children to not swim when it is oppressively hot out?
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BPD's helicopter is circling Patterson Park alerting folks to--and, I'm not kidding--get out of the city pool.
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The other fallacy I'll address (there are many others I won't spend my time on...right now at least), is the idea that Baltimore's problems come "progressive" changes. In the Post last month, me and basically wrote a pre-rebuttal to this
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In 2016, Baltimore cops robbed a man for 10k. He was killed a few months later after his court date (they arrested him for a gun, stole his cash) because he couldn't pay a drug debt. That's crime cops created.
Removing "I smelled cannabis" from a cop's arsenal of justifications for 4a violations is crucial; police straight up LIE about smelling weed all the time
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Here is the provision of the final bill addressing the use of odor in police investigations. Odor alone can no longer be used as a basis for stop/search. Only exception is when investigating DWI and then, scope of search is limited. A real win for marijuana justice in NY.
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And lastly, this line: "Peaceful protests and then violence ensued." That's his diagnosis of the Baltimore Uprising. What is missing from that description is POLICE VIOLENCE that killed Freddie Gray. This is the game Stephens and others keep playing: State violence isn't violence
the Baltimore Police, due to pressure from a number of reporters, released footage of a cop running over a teen and knew the Sun and others would follow the distracting framing of "but he's not dead!" and "but we say he had a gun"
The scaremongering around Fells Point, Federal Hill is also part of what I think of as the dormification of city life thanks to shitty developers and the white professional class they court. This continuation of the racist classist bubble that’s put around these folks in college
This is definitely the way we all need to understand the vast majority of the news (especially daily papers and tv news): It is responsible for causing harm and works in tandem with law enforcement to cause harm.
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I am going to try to stop talking about how media and journalists "enable" police, prosecutors, & the prison-industrial-complex in their mission to perpetuate mass criminalization & oppression.
Media & journalists are directly responsible for mass criminalization & oppression.
Whenever I'm editing someone I think of this Eno note to Coldplay—"Your songs are too long. And you're too repetitive, and you use the same tricks too much, and big things aren't necessarily good things, and you use the same sounds too much, and your lyrics are not good enough."
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But this is why Baltimore is such a bad example. When you see the extent of Baltimore Police corruption it's organized crime, it is a gang doing the stuff gangs do.
ah yes Towson famously free of drugs
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I was born and raised in the Towson area, went to high school and college in Towson and today, have investment there. I remember when Towson was free of violent crime and drugs. What has happened? First, a lack of support and respect for law enforcement. Second, the
MD's governor supports ethnic cleansing
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Today, the State of Maryland stands with Israel as Hamas terrorists attack innocent civilians. We pray for all the victims of the bloodshed and that it will soon come to an end.
"federal gun possession warrant" is an absurd and scary phrase; another example of why gun possession is a charge that shouldn't be criminalized
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The chart-topping rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again was found not guilty on Friday of possessing a firearm and ammunition as a felon, concluding one of the two federal gun trials he had been facing. nyti.ms/3c69AQz
My dumb governor voted for Reagan, also a horrible racist rather than take a productive stance against Trump; if you believe that voting third party is bad or toxic, where does voting for a dead fascist because you're afraid to stand up to the living fascist fall
Jews Against ICE and Jews United For Justice marching through Artscape against ICE
West Baltimore neighborhood on lockdown and 200k+ reward for info on cop killer; across town Commissioner speaks at vigil for white guy murdered during robbery—clear evidence that police lives and white lives matter more to officials in Baltimore.
I interviewed one of the artists behind the “CANCEL RENT AND FUCK THE POLICE” billboard: “The message is timed with the fifth anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death and the first flight of the N73266 spy plane,“ they told me baltimorebeat.com/2020/05/03/jac
The far more interesting story than oh wow Baltimore is protesting “peacefully”—by which you mean “nonviolent,” a tactic—is Baltimore is really expanding how it protests and doing some fairly complex and confrontational stuff
so much nightlife and culture in Baltimore has been destroyed over the last 25 years or so with the help of reporters framing a crime as "near [area being targeted by city]" when it is in fact just as near many, many other kinds of businesses, areas, etc.
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31 yr old woman was shot this morning just after bar closing time (2:20am) one block off "The Block"
Amid debate over a proposal to require Block businesses to close early
wbaltv.com/article/the-bl
So Maryland's Governor Larry Hogan is agitating for more police, more prosecutions, etc. in Baltimore—all of the things that not only don’t help communities but actively hurt them, which is all Hogan offers to this city: Harm. This is all too predictable.
Daily paper crime reporting needs to be totally overhauled. Mostly white dudes doing a "police say" dance b/w scaremongering covering mostly Black death day in day out for years until they get a gig doing the same job in a bigger city and to what end
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And unlike the drug crews—"gangs" as people like Stephens think of them—a gang of police can create violence to maintain power and profit and also use it to argue they need more money etc. because look the crime (which they had a role in creating) continues.
I wrote a book and watched Tiger King so fuck you
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When most people were watching "Tiger King," Pete Buttigieg started writing a book. Now it's a best seller. nyti.ms/3klQhlJ
Gathered in front of Johns Hopkins University President Ron Daniels house in protest of Hopkins getting a private police force. After years of organizing Hopkins condensed it would DELAY the force by two years. Organizers say that’s not good enough
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And mind you, the main thing he claims is hindering cops is the Federal Consent Decree. This is a common talking point by a lot of pro-cop types: "We can't do our job because of these oversights."
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Replying to @notrivia
About 40 lifeguards at $20 per hour given the cost per hour to operate the aircraft, not including pilot and observer salaries.
This statement from Baltimore youth is really incredible; not a surprise they can navigate complex issues and sometimes competing interests better than elected officials but it is still worth noting they navigate this better than grown ass adults in positions of power
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Important freedom of the press news in Maryland! Ruling in Soderberg et. al. v. Carrion came down today and its a good one: broadcasting or distributing lawfully obtained audio or video recordings of Maryland court proceedings no longer banned.
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Story briefly acknowledges unionization efforts that BMA is hindering but it still speaks to how terribly labor is covered by the press: An exhibition framed as celebrating its workers while not letting those workers have a wall-to-wall union should not get this kind of press.
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A new exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art was curated by security staff. “We’re filmmakers, musicians, professors, writers, artists. We know a lot more about the artwork than people would be led to believe,” said Kellen Johnson, one of the curators. nyti.ms/3Nm0b5I
I know most of us know this but look, all that "psychoactive" means is it affects the brain etc. and change mood, behavior blah blah blah. Booze is psychoactive, caffeine is psychoactive, jesus christ man
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See this gummy I’m holding? It’s LEGAL cannabis. 100mg. Psychoactive. And you can buy it over the counter. No medical card. My I-team report Monday 5pm. @wbaltv11
What police think of as policing and what citizens (and Vox bois and pundits etc.) think of as policing are radically different. Cops are committed to more gear and surveillance and jump-out boys and this is what they do spend money on and what they want to spend money on
again: extent of the Gun Trace Task Force and other drug dealing/stealing Baltimore Police officers terrorizing city surely had an impact on murder rate, drug culture of the city: more drugs, disrupting established drug market, etc. This should be the biggest story in the country
Every April 19—the day Freddie Gray died—I post these photos I took in the early days of the Baltimore Uprising. On Apr. 12, Gray was chased by cops, grabbed, and thrown into a police van screaming on April 12. He died a week later.
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