I’m juggling a number of things right now as I write this, and it’s possible some of the details are wrong. If you’re reading this for information verify through other sources and if there are large errors please note them in the comments.
At approximately 12:30pm a letter was distributed suggesting that the Bloods, Crips, the Black Guerrilla Family, and the Nation of Islam had gotten together to declare war on the Baltimore City Police Department. The BCPD declared the letter a legitimate threat.
Sometime after that, a meme was distributed suggesting Baltimore school kids engage in a “purge”. The concept of the “purge” was taken from a movie with the same name, depicting a dystopian scenario in which for a short period all rules are suspended.
At 3pm police appeared in full riot gear at Mondawmin Mall. Mondawmin is a major transportation hub for the city and for the city’s school children–because Baltimore Public Schools don’t have their own bus service kids use the city bus, Metro, and Light Rail to get home.
The police decided to prevent kids from accessing the buses they use to get home, confining them to the Mondawmin area.
The steps the police took to protect themselves, exacerbated an already tense environment. Certainly preventing high school age children–who are already prone to take risks, already prone to believe themselves invulnerable, and already prone to being harassed by police officers–created the conditions in which a riot was more likely to occur.
Based on what I’ve read your quick thoughts are on point. Mother Jones provides some details. The letter was a false flag to justify any police violence if necessary. Police definitely wanted to keep people from downtown after what happened on Saturday. They apparently decided to sacrifice the Mondawmin area and created the cannon fodder by confining young people to that area. There is no doubt that there were deep state agents, agent provocateurs, and anarchists embedded in the rebellion. Any thoughts on the torching of the church project in E. Baltimore?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-baltimore-riots-began-mondawmin-purge
I heard your comments on C-SPAN and you are so right about organizing co-ops in poor communities in Baltimore. I would like to hear you speak on the inflexible rules that govern welfare. That system seems to punish those who try to get ahead and rewards those whose behavior is reprehensible. Also why not demand that schools be open all year long and available to the community. Any welfare recipient who has no high school degree should be required to attend school to get a degree. Why not have police provide security in the schools and have a program like explorers or woodshop so that they have a positive fellowship with boys and girls. Would it be so difficult to set up co-op food mart, co-op baby-sitting service, co-op garden, cleaning service, etc. It is going to take someone like you to organize a program that supplies the rules and operational expertise to accomplish this. Cities need taxpayers to survive. Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore are the tip of the iceberg. I hope you fine a way to turn things around.