At Baltimore and Bond, where at least one bloodied man had been shot and managed to get to a hospital by car, two Hopkins security guards in the garage next door, one getting off his shift, the other just starting, could be heard chatting.
"That was off the hook, what happened," one said.
"Last night, 18," the other answered as he drove off.
On Conkling Street, where two teenagers were shot and killed, two small blood splotches stained the sidewalk and the road where at least one of the bodies fell, next to a weathered "Welcome to Baltimore Highland" sign and across the street from where they had been attending another cookout.
The shootings on Conkling were not related to the shooting on Ashland, which might have sparked the shootings at Baltimore and Bond, which might have led to the shootings on Comet, which might have been retaliation for a shooting six months ago which was retaliation for a shooting four months before that, which was retaliation for a kidnapping two months before that.
And so on.
Fifteen months ago, when two teens were kidnapped by a rival family and then returned to a Baltimore County police station as mysteriously as they had disappeared, but with no charges filed by authorities, the word on the street was that retaliation would be swift and unforgiving and the word from the cops was that they'd go after this violent group without hesitation.
We learned Monday, after more than a year of violence apparently sparked by the kidnappings, that the street once again triumphed over justice, and left Baltimore's police commissioner, Frederick H. Bealefeld III, publicly questioning the pace of that probe.
The commissioner also didn't like the fact that his own cops didn't have intelligence about the cookout, and promised a full review and accounting and a change of tactics "so we can put [the groups] once and for all out of business and curtail this back and forth historic violence."
Bealefeld and Mayor Sheila Dixon bypassed platitudes while addressing the media on Monday, presenting a subdued, almost stoic appearance before cameras.
"There is no reason for me to stand here and rant and rave like a maniac," the mayor said. Added Bealefeld, "I don't want to get lost in the rhetoric about how frustrated we are about crime."
And we know all too well how the culture of violence is embedded in our community.
