{"id":724015,"date":"2018-05-27T23:32:06","date_gmt":"2018-05-27T23:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=724015"},"modified":"2018-05-27T23:32:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-27T23:32:06","slug":"societal-commentary-sun-27-may-2018-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=724015","title":{"rendered":"Societal Commentary – Sun 27 May, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Big Al<\/a><\/span> Remember what Dr. Huber and I discussed on The Weekend Show?<\/p>\n

Maryland police officer’s death ignites a racial firestorm
\nBy Jean Marbella, The Baltimore Sun<\/p>\n

Thanks to Listener Larry<\/strong><\/p>\n

BALTIMORE \u2013 It’s hard to think of a more volatile mix: Four young black males from Baltimore City, accused in the death of a white female police officer in Baltimore County. Authorities say three of the teenagers were breaking into homes when the fourth ran the officer over in a stolen Jeep.<\/p>\n

Predictably enough, social media, call-in radio and other forums blew up. A sampling from the Baltimore County Police & Fire Facebook page:<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hoping they’d kill him during apprehension. What a waste of life. He’s currently breathing air some decent person could be breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally am tired of good for nothing hood rats committing adult crimes and people STILL saying crap like, he had hard times growing up, society made him do these things because he had no role models.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope all you whites have the same level outrage next time one of your youths decide to shoot up a school of innocent children,\u201d another wrote. \u201cYou all are a disgusting group of devils.\u201d<\/p>\n

No previous case has generated as much online reaction, county fire spokeswoman Elise Armacost said. Authorities pleaded repeatedly for civility, and county staff took down comments that contained profanity or were typed in all caps. But they have struggled to keep up with the avalanche of angry postings \u2013 many of which called for the accused driver to be hanged, shot, run over or raped.<\/p>\n

\u201cSadly, these comments are a microcosm of the conflicts and lack of civility we see in the country right now,\u201d Armacost said.<\/p>\n

Stephanie DeLuca, a Johns Hopkins sociologist, has long studied Baltimore youth. She’s also the daughter of a 40-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department. She described the \u201cabsolutely awful\u201d case as a kind of perfect, polarizing storm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt touches on all these intersections \u2013 of race, policing, city-county,\u201d said DeLuca, co-author of the 2016 book \u201cComing of Age in the Other America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce fear is sparked, anger is sparked,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Authorities say the teenagers were burglarizing homes in Perry Hall Monday afternoon when Baltimore County Police Officer Amy S. Caprio approached the Jeep. They say driver Dawnta Harris, 16, of the Gilmor Homes public housing project in West Baltimore, ran her over.<\/p>\n

a man wearing a suit and tie smiling at the camera: Officer Amy S. Caprio\u00a9 Baltimore County Police Departme\/Baltimore Sun\/TNS Officer Amy S. Caprio
\nCaprio died a short time later. Harris and three other youths were charged as adults with first-degree murder.<\/p>\n

That the black youths had driven to the county, populated in no small part by decades of white flight from the city, fueled heated exchanges online and over the airwaves.<\/p>\n

Where some saw predatory \u201canimals\u201d and \u201cthugs,\u201d others saw demonization and a rush to judgment. Finger-pointing between city prosecutors and state juvenile officials only added to the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s time that we just turn the city over to the hoodlums and just let them annihilate themselves,\u201d one commenter wrote on The Baltimore Sun’s Facebook page.<\/p>\n

DeLuca said the anger obscures an important point: Most young people in Baltimore’s impoverished neighborhoods are going to school or working or both, not out on the streets and creating mayhem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re looking for something to do, something to be about,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is about human development, personal development, and finding meaning and dignity, and these are in short supply in Baltimore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, she said, it’s people like Harris, who authorities say fled home detention this month while awaiting sentencing for a car theft, who are \u201cviewed as the norm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing I think is important to remember is this is not the typical kid,\u201d DeLuca said. \u201cBut no one wants to hear that in the face of this tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

And indeed, online comments tend to follow a pattern: A poster calls for the suspects to \u201cROT in prison & actually they should get the DEATH PENALTY!\u201d Others chime in with similar proposals, until eventually someone demurs, perhaps expressing empathy for the youths’ families or pointing out that police have killed suspects but escaped accountability. Then that draws a backlash, and the cycle continues.<\/p>\n

On the WBAL radio show hosted by Clarence M. Mitchell IV, callers have been talking about little else.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re talking about a black young man from Gilmor Homes in a very, very white area, and a white female police officer \u2013 the racial dynamics can’t be eliminated,\u201d said Mitchell, a former Democratic state senator and scion of a family of civil rights activists.<\/p>\n

But he said \u201cpeople who get involved with racial animus\u201d now generally get called out for it, a change from the past.<\/p>\n

Juvenile services secretary says Baltimore County officer’s killing shows youth justice system failed<\/p>\n

He sees the real issue in this case as the failings of the juvenile services and juvenile justice systems. Harris had been arrested in several car thefts before Monday, and had been ordered on home detention this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we worry about some people’s language, we’re never going to help these kids. Let’s not be so defensive,\u201d Mitchell said, \u201cI’m sorry, at some point we have to stop being so sensitive. We are too worried about how we look as opposed to correcting this reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is we have a problem. We are a violent city. We have a dysfunctional juvenile justice system,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antero Pietila, who has written about the ways decades-old laws, racial covenants and red-lining created the segregation that persists in much of the Baltimore region today, said the reaction to Caprio’s death reveals the continuing tensions between the city and county.<\/p>\n

\u2018Your client is a one-man crime wave’: Teen charged in Baltimore County officer’s death has lengthy juvenile record<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter white flight, a lot of people who moved to Baltimore County \u2026 felt victimized by blacks \u2013 \u2018they made me move,’\u201d said Pietila, author of \u201cNot in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt stressful times, all these emotions come out,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are not logical matters. These are matters where emotions rise, …read more<\/a> <\/p>\n

From:: The Korelin Economic Report<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Big Al Remember what Dr. Huber and I discussed on The Weekend Show? Maryland police officer’s death ignites a racial firestorm By Jean Marbella, The Baltimore Sun Thanks to Listener Larry BALTIMORE \u2013 It’s hard to think of a more volatile mix: Four young black males from Baltimore City, accused in the death of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[362],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=724015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=724015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=724015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=724015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}