I think we have to put this into the right prospective.
Baltimore, with the exception of a three-thousand foot circular area around the National Aquarium (includes the Orioles stadium)...it’s a virtual no-go town. The Greenmount Avenue area is a place you have to avoid at all costs....day or night. The northeast end of town (roughly 16 square miles) is where you go for drugs and homicide.
Cops in general with Baltimore...either have given up on town or simply doing a ‘show-and-tell’ game to convince the convention crowd that the harbor area is totally protected (that’s where they put the bulk of their resources) and they intend to make it their ‘final stand’.
Our guy Freddy? Toxicology reports have leaked and it shows Freddy had a heroin habit. You can survive for a long while on the drug, but your sense of survival will reach a point where you will do anything to get the money for a fix. Freddy was living off borrowed time, and while it’s a joke the way that he went (back of a cop van)...it could have easily been Freddy reported dead in some back alley with a needle still in his arm.
The cops in Baltimore? A public service job at best. They hustle thugs, pimps, hookers, druggies, etc...in, and a couple of hours later...the same folks get released via bail. Court meetings are just a game of sorts....the lawyers discuss some negotiation scheme...some judge stamps it....life goes on. There’s no success story for the cops to talk about.
Maybe Baltimore was significant and a worthwhile place...but that was 1970 when the Orioles put Boog Powell and Brooks Robinson at the corners and easily won the World Series. Baltimore was a fairly safe town in those days.
What about the huge cemetery with all the statues on the way into town?
Never mind.
The Greenmount Cemetery is half a black from Greenmount Avenue.
Dammit.
I have wanted to photograph there for ages.
Dammit.
Nice post.
I got lost in Baltimore once. A bunch of us were attending a convention and I was driving. That is a freaking scary town at night.