Things are beginning to look scary in Baltimore

Absolutely true.  I believe the real heroes from last night were the brave firefighters who were caught in the middle of a dangerous and untenable situation but continued to do their job and saved many properties and people from being destroyed.  To me, firefighters will always be heroes.

Yes this is what's being lost and makes me very sad. It's a tiny minority that are being violent and looting.

His expired at a bad time for us (financially) which we are still in. Oh and before you or anyone else tells me we should cut out this or that. We have no cable or home internet (we use data on our phone) we don't go vacations. We're also hoping to hear something back soon in regards to something in his dept which will give him a vest.

So your question may not have been a slam but it felt very judgmental.

It should also be noted that the peaceful protests were getting results. The DOJ opened its investigation last week about this time. The spotlight of the nation was being focused on the Baltimore police department and what happened to Freddie Gray.

The looting and destruction have taken that focus off Gray. That is very, very unfortunate. I hope that common sense will prevail soon and the violence ends.

This post isn't directed at me but yes I'll say it. I believe the police of Baltimore are part of the reason there is rioting. Why? Because the rioting wouldn't have happen if Freddie Gray hadn't died from injuries suffered while in police custody. The Baltimore police have a history of brutality and civil rights violations.
Just like Ferguson the death of a person at the hands of a police force that is no longer trusted is just the tipping point of a much larger problem.

I thought one of the more moving things I have seen was the older Vietnam vet who stood in front of the line of police officers shout "GO GO" to the hooligans on the street who were coming at the police.

And the mom. I loved the mom dragging her kid off the streets.

I think if the police have been killing people in your community with impunity for years then maybe feeling smashy about things is a natural reaction. How many bodies does it take before people - of color and otherwise - stand up and say enough? How many old ladies have to get tazed to death? How many unarmed children playing in the park need to be shot? How many handcuffed and completely subdued young men have to suffocate and die while cops laugh at them? How many times does a resident have to get pulled over in his own fucking neighborhood for driving while black? I am not shocked people are puppy-kicking mad about it.

Freddie Gray isn't the first Baltimore citizen to be taken on one of these "rough rides". The city has paid out quite a bit of money over the years to people injured in police vans.

You'll never hear me say I support violence or looting in any form. I believe this wouldn't be happening, however, if the people of Baltimore weren't at the mercy of a police department that failed miserably in policing itself.

But we are outraged by that. It clearly looks like criminal action on the part of the police. Clearly. But we also know (all of us, including you) know that the video and the outcome is not all the information on the case. There is other information that will either prove wrong doing on the part of the police or show why they are not at fault. At this point in time we do not know all of the facts so we don't know with certainty which it will be.

How does understanding that we do not know all of the facts mean that we are not outraged by police brutality? Answer: It doesn't. That would be like saying 1+1=6 so you must be a racist. Doesn't make a lick of sense does it?

I didn't participate in that thread you mentioned, but I think the disparity you are seeing in this and the Pea's personal case is that what we get here from a pea is likely to be all of the info we will ever know, so Peas go by what info they have.

In the meantime we are dealing with rioting at this very moment while we wait for the investigation to produce the missing info. That is why you see the focus on the rioting. It doesn't mean we don't care that someone was a victim off police brutality.

But what is the percentage of crimes committed to the percentage of death rate? If we are going to analyze, then lets get the whole picture. 

I can be absolutely outraged at police brutality regardless of race. Where my understanding and empathy begin to wane is not seeing the exact SAME level of outrage from the exact SAME people every time a violent crime is committed against a black person on a DAILY basis, statistically by members of their OWN race. The percentage of black deaths by cops doesn't come near to the percentage of black on black crime. Where is the rioting and looting on a daily basis to protest the senseless deaths of black men caused by black men or is it really code for "we only care when it is cop on black or white on black deaths"

Black on black crime and police brutality are two separate issues. Liken it to saying hey "yall kill each other so why can't we" all while wearing a hood. That rhetoric is sooo nonsensical. Your empathy can't wane if it was nonexistent in the first place.

I must say, that is one thing I do not understand. There are a whole lot more instances of blacks killing other blacks than there are of cops killing blacks. Yet, I never read about the rioting and looting or even peaceful demonstrations against this. Do these things happen and media just doesn't cover it as much? 
Also..."Thug" is not a racial word in my world. We have very very few blacks or other non-white people in my town, yet we have plenty of thugs. They are white. 

Since we are tossing around Martin Luther King Jr quotes, I thought I would share one too.