Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Marilyn Mosby: A Woman Without Shame
When I learned on Wednesday morning that prosecutors in Baltimore had elected to drop all charges against the remaining defendants in the Freddie Gray case, I felt a great sense of relief for the three police officers who had not yet been acquitted. I phrase it that way intentionally because, after the third acquittal in the case (and a hung jury), it should have been clear to anyone – even State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby – that the state had no chance of convicting any of the officers on even a single charge. In June of last year, I predicted such an outcome here on Ricochet, and I also predicted that the officers would later prevail in a civil case against Mosby. Now that the first element of that scenario has come to pass, in due course we’ll find out about the second.
State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby must be grateful for the gag order that prevents her from talking about the Freddie Gray case. So far, her office has tried three of the six officers accused in Gray’s death, resulting in two acquittals and one hung jury. What a relief it must be to not face reporters after yet another rebuke. On Thursday, Officer Caesar Goodson — who drove the police transport van in which Gray suffered his fatal injury —

Yesterday, a
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is as obtuse as ever. Addressing the sharp decline in arrest numbers from the Baltimore Police Department, Rawlings-Blake told a reporter for the
We know well from the media the tired Baltimore narrative: widespread prejudice and callous indifference, now and in the distant past, built the socio-economic bomb that racist police gratuitously set off, leading to regrettable — but in a sense also justifiable — “rebellions” and “uprisings” marked by cri de coeur looting and arson. “Riot” and “thug” are coded racist words, at least if not spoken by the mayor of Baltimore and the President of the United States. The narrative is usually punctuated by melodramatic warnings from elites of “more to come.” I suppose the subtext is that unless, in our era of $18 trillion in federal debt, more federal money is borrowed and redirected into Baltimore—or unless more resources are devoted to the often personal or careerist agendas of elite critics—then the violence of the underclass may well become endemic and perhaps hit the Upper West Side, Palo Alto or Chevy Chase (though perhaps not Utah, Montana or Texas).
I have a