During playing of the Star-Spangled Banner on July 4th, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor unravels in black fighting and gunfire

CBS local news in Baltimore reports:

Child Shot, Man Dead After Fireworks Celebration

BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Baltimore’s Inner Harbor fireworks were rocked by fighting and gunfire Monday night.

After the Fourth of July fireworks show ended, violence erupted all around the area. It left a child shot, a man dead and police using all their resources to get control.

Mike Hellgren reports police say they now have a person of interest in the stabbing and new information on how the child was shot.

As “America the Beautiful” played, the fireworks celebration unraveled at the Inner Harbor as a fight unfolded on the promenade and the light show went on above the rowdy scene.

Minutes later, at Pratt and Light Streets, a 4-year-old boy walking with his parents began crying. They discovered he’d been shot in the leg. Police now believe it may have been a stray bullet from a gun fired into the air. That child will survive and was taken to Johns Hopkins.

Police say they now have a person of interest in a deadly stabbing. A man was cut in the neck outside McCormick and Schmick’s in the 700-block of Eastern Avenue as the packed habor celebration was letting out. The victim was 26 and from Alabama.

The violence came just hours after police commissioner Fred Bealefeld expressed confidence that his several hundred officers would be on top of the situation, keeping visitors safe.

“You’re going to see many, many uniformed police officers,” he said.

Bealefeld says the number of officers at the Inner Harbor this year were comparable to the numbers there last year.

Still, Bealefeld said he was worried about what might happen when the fireworks ended.

“This is one of our principal concerns because after 9:30 and the fireworks are over, the event is substantially over. We want people to get home safely,” said Bealefeld.

Police are combing through footage from more than 90 city surveillance cameras, trying to put as many faces to crimes as they can.

“These folks really need to be held accountable,” Bealefeld said.

Police are also cracking down on curfew violators, getting dozens of young people off the streets after 11 p.m.

Buck O., who sent the item, writes:

I used to attend the Fourth of July fireworks at Baltimore’s beautiful Inner Harbor. I’d take my young son. They would float a huge barge into the harbor and produce a world-class fireworks display. It was always a good crowd. I also used to frequent the adjacent Fells Point, where you could take a fun water-taxi ride through the harbor. Fells Point was the best of a quintessential historic Baltimore waterfront restaurant and shops district. I stopped frequenting both for other reasons. But just recently I was informed that both areas are now being overrun by black thugs and black bikers. These were Baltimore’s two best tourist destinations. They’re certain to be ruined.

Once again, no one with authority will have a clue as to how to act to stop this. Teeth gnashing and adding more cops is submissive behavior. Whites are withdrawing by night, and soon by day. It’s sad. We just give up in the face of threatening behavior. We haven’t the courage to confront this as a people. We let government do its thing, and we simply move on.

My instincts (of a much younger man) are those of my older siblings back in the day. They simply gathered and presented themselves in the appropriate numbers and good order resumed. Now? No way. That kind of authority no longer exists.

To think that this is where was written the lyric,

O’er the land of the free
And the home of the brave!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 06, 2011 12:42 PM | Send