MTA violence: why is anyone surprised?

In the past month, the Baltimore media has seen fit to report four violent attacks aboard MTA buses in the city, as though they are unprecedented. Mayor Sheila Dixon has made one of her usual schoolmarmish  pronouncements: "I will not tolerate intimidation or violence anywhere in our city," as if those 24 dozen murders and countless shootings had not happened this year in Baltimore, but in some parallel universe.

The first three of these attacks have been black predators attacking white victims. Altogether too many words have already been said about that, none of them the right ones. In a city where blacks are in the majority, only a fool would be shocked at this information. Not only do these kids harbor a lot of unwarranted anger-even allowing for the ordinary hormonally surge-but they have somehow been conditioned to see impoverished whites (such as Sarah Kreager) and the elderly as attractive prey.

Dixon and the others act as though this is a recent phenomenon, and peculiar to the MTA's buses. Refusing to believe there is such a thing as black prejudice towards non-blacks, the Powers That Be see no connection between the attack on Kreager and-for example--the attack earlier this year on Zach Sowers. In the name of expedience, the state's attorney has done a grave disservice to Sowers (who remains comatose) by bargaining away the right to charge this monster with murder, should Sowers eventually die. This, despite the willingness of the co-attackers to testify on the prosecution's behalf.

MTA officials appear in deep denial over the long history of nasty behavior aboard their vehicles, at their bus stops, and in other public places. A few years ago on the SunSpot news forum, a woman reported having witnessed a young (black) man openly masturbating aboard a subway. Others followed in close order, saying they'd seen similar stuff. My own wife rode MTA buses to work for more than a decade, and every day I waited breathlessly until she'd gotten safely home, wondering whether the assault du jour would be merely a groping or verbal insult, a purse snatching, or something unimaginably worse. And that was more than fifteen years ago.

The city's self-anointed black authority figures have addressed their remarks not to the young generation responsible for the violence, but to their shocked parents and grandparents. They know from whose pockets their money flows, at it's from the elders who feel ashamed and powerless about the kids.

It has been at least two generations since any city has seen an activist with the courage and "street cred" to go out amongst the youngsters and work directly with them. The result is a generation of children who know that adults fear them, and use that fear to great effect. Nobody has managed to teach them that this same fear, from which they derive a transitory thrill today, will tomorrow deter someone from hiring them, for example. They have, by their own efforts, de-humanized themselves.

Meanwhile, the Deep Thinkers in the city and state government will grasp at any cockamamie notion, knowing that it will fail, but praying that it won't fail until someone else is at the helm. Kurt Schmoke, as mayor, attempted placating the thug element with silliness such as midnight basketball. Martin O'Malley attempted, during the brief period he was paying attention, to have the city arrest its way out of the problem. That bit of folly only clogged the court system so badly that many serious crimes went unprosecuted because of speedy-trial rules, or were plea-bargained away to nothing. Sheila Dixon has proven herself worse than incapable of ameliorating the violence; she's actually made herself a laughing stock. And from his new seat of power, O'Malley is about to make matters exponentially worse by abolishing officially the death penalty in this state, thus removing any genuine negative consequences for predatory violence.

This problem will not be solved by any number of people safely ensconced behind bulletproof glass watching the violence unfold on video screens, by any amount of political oratory, however sincere, or by any number of "gun buy-backs."  In this city, countless firearms have been "bought back," nearly always in violation of federal laws. Pellet guns, most knives, knuckle dusters, pepper spray, stun guns and nearly every category of improvised defensive weapon has been declared verboten. The violence grows more frequent and random, and the Deep Thinkers continue along the same course that has steadily proven itself counterproductive.

There is a reason that jackals prey upon antelopes, rather than tigers and elephants. The simple fact is that thugs, punks and other miscreants are less likely to attack victims if there is any certainty that one of their potential targets may be armed.

It is past time that governments admit they can seldom protect anyone, but only pick up the broken pieces after a tragedy has occurred. People will remain at risk until they demand that the governments quit condemning them for defending themselves.

tags: violence  crime  racism  urban  

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