The Fulford File| Contrary To Conor Friedersdorf, Baltimore Doesn’t Have A Police Problem—It Has A BLACK Police Problem
05/05/2015
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conorsarticleThe revelation that half of the cops accused of being responsible for Freddie Gray’s death are black reminds me that I meant to boot this stupid thing Conor Friedersdorf wrote.

Conor Friedersdorf, [Email him] a young, extremely faux-conservative writer, appears regularly in the Atlantic, which how you can tell his conservatism is faux.

Previous Friedersdorfiana on VDARE.com:

See also Friedersdorf on John Derbyshire (old people with attitudes like Derb’s are dying out) and Derbyshire on Friedersdorf (kids these days!)

Recently, Friedersdorf did a piece called The Brutality of Police Culture in Baltimore | Years of abuses are every bit as egregious as what the Department of Justice documented in Ferguson, Missouri, and as deserving of a national response [The Atlantic, April 22, 2015].

(VDARE.com has shown, by the way, that the “documented” abuses Eric Holder’s Department of Justice claimed to find in Ferguson, Missouri were bogus. Ferguson about average for a Southern town in its police culture, and racial disparities in policing are greater in places like Seattle. See Everyone Is Guilty: The Eric Holder Challenge: Can You Find a City Where Blacks Aren’t Arrested More Often? ).

But Friedersdorf believed in the evils of the Ferguson PD implicitly, and wrote it up twice in The Atlantic: Ferguson's Conspiracy Against Black Citizens, March 5, 2015 and Where's the Conservative Outcry on Ferguson Police Abuses? March 10, 2015.

Still, Ferguson is a majority black town that is white ruled (because blacks don’t bother to vote) and policed by mostly white people because they didn’t fire all the white cops when blacks moved into town.

In contrast, Baltimore is part of Black-Ruled America, and has been for years. That’s why, when I clicked through on the awful examples of awful Baltimore cops Friedersdorf provided (there are 22 links in Friedersdorf’s piece) his Narrative Collapsed immediately.

I’ll put Friedersdorf’s examples of Baltimore police horribleness in bullet points headed “CF:” like this

  • CF: Also in 2014, "[link fixed] a city police officer was charged with felony assault after he stormed into a home in full uniform Monday and threatened to kill his wife with his service weapon."

Unmentioned by Friedersdorf: this was a Hispanic officer—Hispanics are much more likely to react violently to wives who are cheating. (The home he stormed into was her boyfriend’s, she was in his bed.)

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Officer Gualberto Diaz, 38

Baltimore officer charged with assaulting his wife and her boyfriend, By Ian Duncan, The Baltimore Sun, September 30, 2014

  • CF: A month later, a Baltimore police officer plead [sic, pleaded or pled] guilty "to a felony animal cruelty charge after he fatally beat and choked his girlfriend's Jack Russell terrier," an August 5 article noted.

Unmentioned by Friedersdorf: This was a black officer—blacks are much more likely to hate and mistreat dogs than whites, as Michael Vick or Malcolm X could tell you. (I don’t expect Friedersdorf to know that, or acknowledge if he did. But he did know the officer was black, it was in his linked story).

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Officer Alec Eugene Taylor, 28

Unmentioned by Friedersdorf: this was a black officer—blacks are much more likely to react badly to being “disrespected” by people throwing rocks at their homes. I don’t expect Friedersdorf to know that, or acknowledge it if he did, but he should know that officer James Laboard is black. The teen, also black, and younger and larger than the officer, died in a hand to hand fight—the officer may have been unarmed himself.

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Baltimore County police officer James D. Laboard

Officer's lawyers call Randallstown teen's death accidental, By Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun, June 18, 2013

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Officer Kendell Richburg, via Baltimore Crime, who got it from Richburg’s Myspace Page. (An undercover cop, he’s supposed to dress like that).

FBI investigating false reports filed by Baltimore police unit, By Ian Duncan, The Baltimore Sun, October 24, 2013

So—black again. But I admit this one wasn’t literally staring Friedersdorf, and me, in the face. In the many stories on the web that talk about corrupt Baltimore cop Kendell Richburg going to prison, none of them says he’s a black corrupt Baltimore cop, or shows his picture. Before I found this one blog, I checked him out at the Federal Prison Inmate Locator (Register Number: 56138-037) which does say he’s black.

And of course, blacks are much more likely to be corrupt cops than whites, not that Friedersdorf—I’m starting to get tired of this.

Still, in the other cases Friedersdorf cites, you see a minority face when you click through.

For example, when Friedersdorf says “There is so much I haven't included (example)” what you see is a black woman, a female sergeant, accused of threatening her 17 year-old son with her service weapon—while she was under the influence of alcohol.

Reading that, I had the cynical thought that no one had previously had the idea that black single mothers might be assisted by making them police sergeants at $80, 000 a year

  • CF: I could go on, but I've long since started to skim past stories like "Baltimore police officer pimps out his own wife" and thinking, meh, I've seen worse from cops there. The cop who shot himself and lied about it to get worker's comp benefits? Meh, at least he didn't shoot someone else and then lie about what happened. There is just a staggering level of dysfunction in the department, and residents of Baltimore, a city that could use a professional crime-fighting force if ever there was one, have suffered under it year after year after year….

Is that in spite of Baltimore being a black-ruled city with a 43 percent black police force? Or because of it?

The guy who pimped out his own wife? He’s a black officer—the wife was white—and blacks are much more likely…oh, never mind.

mrandmrsmanneh

Baltimore City police officer Lamin Manneh, 31, and Mrs. Manneh. (Manneh is a Gambian name—Mr. Manneh is not just an African-American, he’s an African.)

Former Baltimore police officer indicted on charges of running prostitution service, By Justin George, The Baltimore Sun, August 16, 2013

The Worker’s Comp fraudster who didn’t harm anyone but himself? He’s white!

And some of the article’s other “bad” cops are white, including an officer that killed a dog that bit him.

But the bottom line: Baltimore doesn’t have a police problem—it has a black problem. And that’s the source of both the street crime that plagues the city even when there’s no rioting, and of dysfunction in the police department.

It’s also clear that Baltimore doesn’t need a "a professional crime-fighting force", if by that Friedersdorf means one that uses kid gloves, and doesn’t “harass” street people over “quality of life” crimes. It needs a tough, aggressive one. (Which according to him, is what they have.)

In the last week, we’ve seen what can happen if the people of Baltimore are not policed.

If, however, by "a professional crime-fighting force" Friedersdorf means a police force that doesn’t steal things, break things, use drugs, or associate with criminals off-duty—a police force with better educations, higher scores on standardized tests, and so on—then what those standards would inevitably get Baltimore is a much whiter police force.

And that Baltimore is not going to get. But it is, nevertheless, the unmentionable solution to the “brutality of police culture in Baltimore” conjured up by Friedersdorf’s reporting.

But I don’t expect Friedersdorf to know that—or acknowledge it if he does.

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