"A Nation Within A Nation"

Charles Pierce on the DOJ report on "the racial catastrophe that is the Baltimore Police Department"—

The history of the numbers—and, therefore, how things went so badly wrong in Baltimore—is a sorry and not entirely inexplicable story. Not if you are familiar with the history of how things go so badly wrong in this country. Race is shot throughout the report; the numbers draw a clear and vivid picture of that. Everything in the report comes down to the disinclination of the civic and political power to grant the freedom of their constitutional rights to its African American citizens. Nothing in the report proceeds without that simple fact. From fugitive slave patrols to this report, the history of American law enforcement shows that so much of American law enforcement hasn't any more idea of how to solve this nation's original sin than does any other institution of American society. Except these people have badges. And guns.