White Girl Bleed a Lot (24 page)

“At this point, it’s unclear what the motive was,” said Anthony Guglielmi, Baltimore City Police spokesperson. “We’re looking at a variety of possibilities. One of them is an obvious robbery. We’re also looking at the background of the victim, trying to see if there are any disputes that might have resulted in this.”
¹⁸

Guglielmi has been leading the pack of local officials who deny any of the dozens of cases of black mob violence in the downtown Inner Harbor area are race-related. Guglielmi, along with the mayor of Baltimore, the governor of Maryland, and others, blasted state legislator Pat McDonough earlier this year when he said black people were “terrorizing” the downtown Inner Harbor. “They were not angry because I was wrong,” McDonough said. “They did not like it because I noticed.”
¹⁹

While Guglielmi continues his investigation into what John Mason did to provoke this treatment, some in Baltimore are wondering what the city is doing to find the predators. “Looks like Gugliemi got the ‘memo,’ said one contributor to a local website. “Always blame the victim if he is white.”

A few blocks away from where Mason almost lost his life, another videotape of a recent Baltimore racial attack is going viral. This one involves students in a downtown high school bullying a teacher while other students recorded it, commented on it, and laughed about it.

The head of Baltimore’s teachers union said it “happens every day.”
²⁰

Politicians and public figures in Baltimore want it both ways: First they deny it. Then they explain it with all the reasons
we have heard for the last 50 years. Do you really need to hear them again?

We can’t say goodbye to Baltimore without including the Case of the Frightened Ambulance Workers. In April 2013 Baltimore-area paramedics responded to a 911 call in Perryman. They arrived, entered the house, removed the injured person, put her in the van, and then they discovered they were surrounded by an angry mob, fighting and throwing things that hit the ambulance. The paramedics “locked themselves in the unit for their own safety,” Richard Gardiner told the
Baltimore Sun
.
²¹

So I dutifully called Mr. Gardiner, whose title is Public Information Officer. “How many people were there?” I inquired.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there,” he said.

“What color was the mob?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

It went like that for a while. No arrests. No reports. No statistics for nosy people like your humble correspondent. And then we hit the deadline for this book, so we will leave this case hanging for the next edition. If you know something, let me know.

Kansas City, here we come.

N
o one is really sure when large groups of black people started showing up at the upscale Country Club Plaza in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, but by 2010, the crowds were so big and so violent they were getting increasingly difficult for newspapers and public officials to ignore.
¹

The Business Journal
was among the first to bell the cat, maybe because one of its reporters saw the violence first-hand. Steve Vockrodt described one night as an “ugly scene” of one thousand “youngsters” that was “nothing less than a riot.”
²

There were assaults, robberies, vandalism, and broken jaws. Nearby businesses closed early, and there was a lot of general mayhem. Shoppers were afraid. When police tried to step in, they were greeted with profanities and disrespect by the juveniles “every time there was an interaction.”

Vockrodt said he was surrounded by fifteen people who tried to steal his bike. It was not the first time these crowds had caused trouble there.
³

Back in 2010 then-mayor Mark Funkhouser said the mobs were nothing new, and it happened every spring. Sounds like a recurring meteorological event, much like Haley’s comet.

Funkhouser announced he was darn well going to stop it. But by August 2011 Kansas City had a new mayor with the same old problems of black mobs at the plaza. Mayor Sly James was having dinner fifty yards away when three black people were shot during another episode of mob violence.

He vowed it would be different by the next weekend.

The local NBC affiliate said the problem was isolated and expressed confidence the mayor would soon have it under control.
⁴

Two years later they are still waiting. And no one is pretending the problem is isolated anymore.

By 2013 local television stations showed groups of black people at the plaza fighting, running from police, and creating mayhem. “The scenes of teens running and ending up in handcuffs are all too familiar now at the crown jewel of Kanas City, the Plaza” said the Fox affiliate in Kansas City. “Just last week another similar incident.”
⁵

Another media outlet said it was a “perennial problem.”
⁶

Many of the attacks happened in February, prior to the summertime curfew, said the Fox News affiliate in Kansas City.
⁷

A homeless man told police he was beaten by a group of fifteen kids thought to be younger than sixteen years old. The men and women on the streets say it is a common occurrence.

“It’s just unfortunate. I mean I’ve heard stories about people sleeping under the bridges and people come by and hit ’em with bricks and stuff like that,” said Mike Higgins, a Kansas City homeless man.

Another man who calls the streets home, Arthur Scott, told us he was attacked last year by three young teens who asked to use his phone.

By 2013 two years after Mayor Sly James said he would have it taken care of by the weekend, it is clear the problem never really went away. “Fights everywhere,” is how one black woman described it. She was also upset that police chased her and 999 of her closest friends after they told them to leave the plaza, and they refused. More police and tighter curfews have not curbed the violence, said the TV stations.

Now police are sending out “community liaisons” to meet with the black people on the plaza and find out what they need.

“The answer is complicated,” said the reporter. That is a euphemism for “What that person just said does not make any sense.”
⁸

One of the people said Kansas City should open up a place where teens can party. Others said the curfew and more police were not effective, because “teens say they hate being targeted and teens never like being told what to do,” the TV station said.
⁹

At one public meeting the mayor said it was time for a dialogue, but most of the newspapers and electronic media don’t permit comments on the topic of racial violence. However, one local blog does not shy away from talking about the racial component of the violence—and the people in charge of stopping it:

A great many eastside voters might not like (Mayor) Sly James telling their kids to stay away from the country club plaza … So Mayor Elect Sly James is not forced to make a choice between Eastside support that was integral to put him in office or the rest of the city that remains terrified of black teens on the plaza.
¹⁰

Kansas City? Peoria? Des Moines? We’re not done yet. Ever been to Charlotte? First let’s head down to Texas.

The ugly gets uglier.

I
t doesn’t get much uglier than this: twenty black men were arrested for raping an eleven-year old Latina girl on nearly half a dozen occasions over a three month period in Cleveland, a small Texas town outside of Houston.

Officials found out about the sexual assault when several of the suspects, some still in high school, showed video of the rape on their cell phones. The race of the victim and the perpetrators is all over this story, says the Associated Press:

Also complicating the case was a belief by many in the predominantly black neighborhood where several of the suspects live that the arrests were racially motivated. All of the suspects are black, while the girl is Hispanic.
¹

Over at The Grio, NBC’s black news site, they posted a different perspective. One that talked about selective prosecution, the KKK, and vicious racial stereotypes. The article led off with an account of neighbors saying the girl invited the sexual attacks:

Neighbors said she dressed and acted like a grown woman, that she wore long dark hair and heavy makeup. She “put up” her age, they said, telling the teenage boys she hung out with at a local playground that she was 18. Her Facebook page is riddled with status updates that brag about her sexual exploits, smoky nights fueled with liquor.
²

After that, shall we say “unusual description,” The Grio topped it off with an admonition that the “incident should serve as an urgent and tragic reminder of the importance of strong community, positive surroundings, and comprehensive sexuality and life skills education for youth that includes gender sensitivity training and anti-violence components.”

The Grio has reworked their original news story, turning it into an opinion piece, and removing the calls for better life skill training.

If they were in Philly, they could have gotten the Hispanic girl some pamphlets, reminding her not to say anything to antagonize black people.

At publication, nineteen of the twenty pleaded or were found guilty, and one awaits trial.
³

Before we put Texas in the rearview mirror, let’s head over to the Big D.

People from Texas love to tell me about how they carry guns and that is why none of that stuff ever happens down there. Really?

In August 2011 a mob of fifty or so black people stormed and robbed a convenience store in Dallas. They also beat the clerk, and it was all caught on video. The blog post said it better than most news articles might, saying this is what happens when a “collection of wastoids just decides to rob and terrorize the locals. It’s happening all over Philadelphia, in Maryland, in Washington D.C., in Milwaukee—it’s a growing trend.”
⁴

Curiously, the headline talks about the “young people” involved, while the video shows lots of old dudes standing around.
If not participating, watching. Not doing anything to stop it.

In Dallas in September of 2011, a group of black people beat a clerk at a convenience store. Turns out that was the
middle
of their spree.

Beatings before and after this.

Texas has also seen some black-on-gay violence: From a Dallas police report in 2011:

On March 13, 2012, at about 2:00 a.m. two citizens were walking near the corner of Audelia Road and Forest Lane. A dark colored 4 door vehicle (possibly a Buick) with tinted windows and 24 inch rims approached the two individuals and suspects from within the vehicle began to shout slurs that were disparaging and derogatory toward sexual orientation.

There were believed to be 5 black male suspects in their 20’s inside the vehicle. Some of the suspects exited the vehicle, and two of them were brandishing baseball bats. The suspects attacked the two victims causing multiple injuries requiring medical treatment.

In Waco, four hundred black people filled the streets of downtown following a July 4, 2012, fireworks show, throwing fireworks and destroying property. When police arrived, they threw explosive devices and rocks at the officers.

“Officers’ attempts to move the crowd were not successful and when they moved into the area, the people became hostile,” says KCEN-TV.

The crowd then started throwing rocks at officers and police cars. One officer received a minor injury when he was struck. Large fireworks that explode with a large flame were also thrown at officers by people in the crowd were attempting to use them as hand grenades.

An armored vehicle was used to try to clear the streets. When it was brought in, members of the group started
throwing bricks and large pieces of concrete.

Police were forced to use chemical munitions to clear the crowd.
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In July 2012 three Dallas police officers responded to a 911 call reporting a kidnapping in progress. When police arrived, the suspects ran, splitting up. So did the three cops. Soon things were not going so well for one of the policemen. After three fights and jumping three fences, he was tired and getting beat up.
⁶

He pulled his gun and after the suspect advanced on him, he shot him and killed him.

They found crack cocaine in the house. And the guy who died had a rap sheet full of drugs, violence, guns, and stealing cars.

Apparently none of the hundreds of angry black people who gathered in an emotional, chaotic, and angry scene after the shooting knew that. Or they did not care. The dead man’s mom said she knew he was selling marijuana, but insisted the shooting was not justified.
⁷

Other family members told the crowd the dead man had been running and the police shot him in the back. That turned out not to be true, though no one would know that for another week.
⁸

The
Dallas News
reported that Freddy Smith, who said he belongs to the Black Panthers, screamed at the officers. “I see a lot of white folks and no black folks,” he said of the SWAT unit.
⁹

Local television reported several members of the crowd had guns. Police broke up fights and fired pepper spray into the crowd.

There were no arrests, but there were lots of police officers in riot gear. They almost outnumbered the crowd. I didn’t see anyone getting invited to racial sensitivity training. Maybe those folks who brag on Texas taking care of their business differently have a point.

So how ’bout them Cowboys?

Carnivals, casinos, riots: let’s have a real good time.

T
his of course does not count the entire city of Camden all the time.