Does living in a cesspool of violence influence how you think about life and your views on crime?

It must and I’ll tell you why:  Baltimore Sun’s editorial staff seem to have suffered a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome with the record-breaking violence in their city of 600,000 in the past year or so.

What is Stockholm Syndrome?  Via Wiki.

Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.

One editor, Tricia Bishop, wrote this in a column posted on January 7th:

Do you know the gun owners in your circle?

Tricia Bishop

The Baltimore Sun

It’s inevitable when my husband and I visit family these days that the subject of violence in Baltimore comes up.

Gee, I wonder why?  Because the rest of us can’t believe you choose to live in such a crime-plagued city?

Here’s how her second paragraph starts:

I’m less afraid of the criminals wielding guns in Baltimore, I declared as we discussed the issue, than I am by those permitted gun owners. I know how to stay out of the line of Baltimore’s illegal gunfire; I have the luxury of being white and middle class in a largely segregated city that reserves most of its shootings for poor, black neighborhoods overtaken by “the game.”

“The game”?  What in the hell?

She says she was nearly raped once before in her liberal life:

I was able to scream and break away from a mugger with a dull knife trying to force me into a vacant lot between rowhouses.

Yep.  Good thing she didn’t have a gun.  She might have been able to do more than rely on pure, dumb luck to get away.

Then a few paragraphs later:

Guns in the home are far more likely to be used accidentally, in suicides or family disputes than in self defense, according to studies based on anecdotal evidence.

If she can’t do any better research than that on this topic, one could reasonably assume that you can’t trust any of her assertions as they are all potentially just as flawed as this one.

They are individuals who have chosen to keep in their homes an object whose chief purpose is to injure or kill, whether in self defense or otherwise. The rest of us should have a right to know it’s there before we — or our children — enter.

Well, Tricia dear:  You can rest assured there might be an object or two at my house capable of protecting innocent life against evil.  If there’s not at your house – and you’re a lot closer to feral animals than me – then you’ll just have to wait until the police arrive instead of relying on yourself.

With decisions come consequences.  Ignoring the proven, life-saving benefits of firearms ownership is neither prudent nor smart.

But then again, half the population is dumber than average.

A day later, Editor #2, publishes a piece eulogizing a career thug named “Thelonious”.

If you thought “Felonious” when you read that like I did, you’re right.  It’s spelled the same way only with a “Th” instead of “F”.

His momma must have thought felonious had a nice ring to it.  I wonder if he had a sister named “Sy-fillus” or a brother named “Deathray” (that’s “dee-ought-trey” in urban speak).

Anyway, this editor had his car stolen about ten years ago by a 16-year-old hoodlum.  Police got the car a few weeks later, and Mr. Editor saw that Thelonious caught himself some lead poisoning in late 2015.  He waxes poetic about how Thelonious might have cured cancer if he’d only enjoyed white privilege.

Homicide victim 212 and my stolen car

by Adam Marton

The Baltimore Sun

Last week, one of my colleagues at The Sun tweeted out the names of all of Baltimore’s 344 homicide victims in 2015, and Thelonious Monk — No. 212 by most counts — caught my eye.

Thelonious was a young black male killed by gunfire, placing him among the vast majority of the people killed here last year. He died on Aug. 26 after being shot in the chest at least once in Southwest Baltimore; he was 28.

In August of 2003, a prosecutor had called to tell me that my stolen car had been recovered and that the perpetrator was a juvenile by that name. I can’t be certain it was the same person, though he was the right age — just 16 at the time.

My car was stolen one summer night after someone fished my keys out of the night drop of an auto shop on Howard Street. I felt victimized and was worried about my car and car loan, which I was still paying off. But everyone in Baltimore has a crime story, and many are much more catastrophic and scarring than a stolen Nissan Altima.

Dear Adam:  Everyone in Baltimore might have a crime story or three, but most of us in the rest of the nation don’t serve as a victim pool for asocial monsters that were raised as feral animals.

He continues:

Our lives crossed, however oddly and briefly, and I can’t help but think that he probably never had a chance — a chance to escape or a chance to succeed. He likely never had the opportunities I have always enjoyed: a safe neighborhood, good schools, a non-negotiable college education and easy entrance into the job market as a result.

Pass me some tissue, please.

Thelonious Monk (no, not the jazz singer) had what he made of it.  He had opportunities and he chose to run with hoodlums and get into trouble over hard work and homework.  He called people like you, Adam, “chumps” for going to work and earning your living, so you could provide him a set of nice wheels for a few weeks.

The Maryland Judiciary Case Search database shows that Thelonious Monk had been arrested many times in his short life for theft, assault, attempted murder and drug charges and served time at Jessup Correctional Institute and the Cecil County Detention Center.

He was such a good boy.  He just made a mistake or two.  We all do, right?  You know, attempted murder and all that.

But many of those who reached out stated that he was trying to get his life back on track despite bad choices in the past and that his loss has affected his family deeply.

They are always trying to “get their life back on track” and “turning things around” when they end up dead.  It’s almost like they were home from their doctoral program in medicine, on their way to church, holding doors for little old ladies, when they were struck down in the prime of their life by bad luck…  or something.

He has a newborn child he will never meet. It is obvious from these messages how these murders of young men take a particularly personal toll on those who have maintained hope and tried to help along the way.

Those who maintained hope and tried to help should have raised something other than a monster.  They should have been helping him when he was a little boy.

After publishing the story on The Sun’s website, Thelonious’ mother called and insisted that her son had not stolen my car…

Right.  It was just a misunderstanding.

Rest in peace, young man, I will never forget you.