Michael Mayfield was shot in the head while sitting in a car in Baltimore last year

THE riots and political rage in Baltimore over the last few days represent mass denial and projection — even if the police acted wrongly and unjustly in the death of Freddie Gray. That’s because the overwhelming violent risk to black Baltimoreans does not come from the police. It comes from their fellow citizens.

Baltimore, in 2013, had the fifth highest murder rate in America. The victims and the perpetrators were overwhelmingly black, judging from lists of the victims and accused. Here is a list of the 233 homicides from 2014. Look at the high number of black shooting victims. Among them was Michael Mayfield, a 17-year-old member of Edmondson-Westside High’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps who played baseball and was a “youth ambassador” and peer mediator. He was shot in the head while sitting in a car outside his grandmother’s home and the suspect is described as black. The murder is believed to be a case of mistaken identity. The 2014 death tolls also includes Allan Foster, a 56-year-old black retired roofer who helped organize the March of Dimes’ annual Great Chesapeake Bay Swim. From a news report after his death:

Most evenings, the 56-year-old and his wife walked to a neighborhood store to play Keno, which is what they were doing moments before Foster was gunned down Thursday outside his Irvington home in Southwest Baltimore.

Marcia Simpson-Foster, who said her husband didn’t have any trouble with anyone, believes it must have been a case of mistaken identity.

The shooting continued a blistering pace of violence in Baltimore. Foster was one of five people shot Thursday, and on Friday morning, a 52-year-old woman was found dead inside her home overlooking Patterson Park in Highlandtown in what police were investigating as a burglary gone wrong.

When they arrived home from their trip to the store, the 4200 block of Walrad St. was still. Simpson-Foster walked into the house to the kitchen, and her 32-year-old son asked Foster to start his car for him. Foster obliged and went back outside.

Simpson-Foster said she didn’t hear a sound, but suddenly her son yelled for her to call 911. Her son and a neighbor urged her not to look outside.

“All I could see was my husband laying in the middle of the street,” she said.

A car could be seen driving off down the street, she said.

Though no one has been apprehended in the case, it has all the hallmarks of a mistaken drive-by shooting. His wife speaks of her ongoing grief here.

In addition last year:

Four hundred twenty-two people were raped, also not by the police, twice the national average.  Three thousand seven hundred fifty-three citizens of Baltimore were subject to forcible armed robbery, nearly six times the national average.  Four thousand four hundred seventy-six people were assaulted in Baltimore, more than three times the national average. [Source.]

There were no protests following the deaths of Foster and Mayfield. There were no elaborate funerals with fiery speeches. Aides to the president and that skunk, Jesse Jackson, did not attend.  Both of these murdered men are apparently missed by their families and their killers are still free.

— Comments —

Alan writes:

In connection with what is going on in Baltimore now, don’t forget these postings about crime in Baltimore, at VFR:

Why Baltimore is in such bad shape

Baltimore’s black youth intifada – View from the Right

State legislator calls on Baltimore mayor to resign if she won’t stop …

Black man comes up behind young white woman in liquor store and …

A two week stay in downtown Baltimore – View from the Right

During playing of the Star-Spangled Banner on July 4th, Baltimore’s …

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