Sunday, April 26, 2015

What did the mayor of Baltimore mean by "space to destroy"?


 
Is this a new riot handling doctrine?

30 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

and BTW she wasn't talking about the orioles playing the redsox a few yards away at Camden Yards.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

You know I watched this live streamed into my computer last night, while on the TV I had CNN with Obama at the Correspondence dinner.

And I have to admit, I completely missed this little morsel.

Well, if you are one of the vandalized business owners, this little morsel is anything but.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I must have missed it because she's a woman ;)

Dad Bones said...

Now the mayor will have to provide more space with unbroken windows. Too many of the city's youth are at risk of not being able to express themselves.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I mean I've heard of protected "safe zones" at universities... never heard of riot zones before though.

Learn something new today.

rcocean said...

The protesters were given a "Safe zone" but the rioters took advantage of it to destroy and loot.

It seems to happen a lot for some reason.

But lets not be hasty and condemn the "safe Zone" philosophy because of a couple hundred bad apples.

rcocean said...

In a way, I find it amusing that a lot of Liberal yuppies got a little blowback - maybe they won't be cheering on the "protesters" in places in Ferguson next time.

Trooper York said...

When the police chief resigned in Parma Missouri because a black woman was elected Mayor he said it was because of "safety" reasons.

I think this is what he was talking about.

Trooper York said...

This could spell the end of Camden Yards as a viable Major League venue.

Why would white people want to go to the inner city to be attacked by people who have to have their space to destroy?

Is that this white privilege I hear so much about these days?

edutcher said...

Like "shelter in place", it means the Lefties really don't want to have to deal with all that patriarchy stuff about enforcing the law and protecting all those icky middle class heterosexual Christian white people.

Chamberlain didn't throw in the towel like this. Laval, maybe.

PS Troop, I think you're right about Camden Yards. A few more incidents like this and the big city sports venue may be a thing of the past.

chickelit said...

"Space to destroy" sounds better in the original German:

Zerstörungsraum

We called it "Romper Room"

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

How big is Obama space to destroy?

chickelit said...

"Romper" being from the Italian verb rompere (to break).

The mentality of the protesters fits the "romper room" demographic.

chickelit said...

From the Wiki:

Originally filmed in Baltimore, Romper Room eventually moved its broadcast facilities to Chicago, then moved back to Baltimore in 1981.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Maybe put these zones on GPS to keep out undesirables?

chickelit said...

In all seriousness, the Mayor seems to be referring to the rioter's right to vandalize in a safe way, albeit on a controlled scale. It's similar to another recent African American turn of phrase: a right to "retail theft for survival."

Lem said...
Maybe put these zones on GPS to keep out undesirables?

"Hamsterdam" from "The Wire"?

edutcher said...

Waiting for the Young Bonaparte and his "whiff of grapeshot" "Miss Me Yet?" posters.

rcocean said...

"Why would white people want to go to the inner city to be attacked by people who have to have their space to destroy?"

I could see people risking their lives for the Red Sox, Yankees or Dodgers. But the Orioles? Not likely.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

"Hamsterdam" from "The Wire"?

That's right.

Governance via movie scripts.

I suppose it could be worst.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

In the movies the good guys always win.

Trooper York said...

I saw this all before when a New York City Mayor pulled the cops back so the community could "vent."

That was in Crown Heights.

We ended up with dead Jews.

Obama would consider that a feature not a bug.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The Orioles are on their own.

rhhardin said...

The mayor of Baltimore is an Oberlin graduate.

Maybe it's microagression avoidance.

AllenS said...

You have the right to destroy shit. It's right there in the Constitution. Somewhere according to The Mayor.

Michael Haz said...

The space to destroy stuff was not in the neighborhood where the mayor lives, I'll bet.

Nor in the neighborhoods where the aldermen live, count on that.

But probably in a neighborhood where immigrants business owners struggle to make a living by running small businesses. Who cares about them? They have zero political clout, so their stuff can be destroyed under the mayor's sanction.

chickelit said...

Spot on, Haz.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Drudge has it on front page.

Give rioters the space next to Blue media elites.

Methadras said...

She seems about as engage as dirty socks in a laundry. She looks like she has zero desire to do anything, but has to monotonically say something in order to appear as if she is doing something.

Mitch H. said...

The Inner Harbor was "protected space" for tourists when I helped run conventions in Baltimore's convention center. The cops tried to keep out trouble-makers when there was a big event, but before and after the tourists were through, there were nests of homeless scattered throughout the area. The Inner Harbor as a tourist-friendly venue didn't just happen, it had to be cleared and made safe.

This seems like a signal that the city is tired of clearing the Harbor for the tourists. Coincidentally, the convention I used to help run announced that it was picking up stakes for the newly expanded DC convention center a while back, in 2018 or 2019 I think - these sorts of five-digit-attendance operations need to plan years in advance.

I'm not still involved, I hadn't been for years before they decided to pick up stakes, but when I heard, I predicted that the city would find reasons to shake down the convention's 501(c)3 for "entertainment taxes", and probably years' worth of back-taxes. I wonder if it's happened? The convention was a nice symbol of the city's friendliness towards visitors and tourists, while still being a place that city residents could fly their freak flags and generally play up to that old John Waters image.

KCFleming said...

Ten years from now, guess what Baltimore will look like?

I predict Detroit.