( CNN ) Looting , fires and violence descended on Baltimore . Like most who know and love that city , I was heartbroken . I was once a cop in Baltimore . Police , trying to save their city last weekend , were blamed both for doing too little and for doing too much . The ghetto , and I 'm talking class and not race , was on full display by Monday . The whole nation saw beautiful Baltimore at its worst . The protests started in response to the death of Freddie Gray in police hands . We still do n't know what happened to Freddie Gray . Something bad happened . There 's an investigation . Maybe the investigation should be going faster . But maybe rushing the investigation would compromise prosecution . ( And forced testimony ca n't be used in prosecution ; police officers too have constitutional rights as criminal defendants . ) I do n't know . Here 's the thing : Police officers who were n't there do n't know what happened to Freddie Gray . If there are criminally guilty cops , police have no problem with justice . But those who caused destruction on Monday had little , if anything , to do with Freddie Gray protests . They were , as the mayor put it , thugs . Call them what you will , normally what happens in the hood stays in the hood . Those who cut fire hoses and burned down homes and businesses ? Police deal with them every day , literally . Those criminals did n't just appear on Monday , and they wo n't be gone tomorrow . They live there , without jobs , education , mainstream social skills , or hope . They do n't come from stable families . They do n't go to church . Most violent criminals are actively or passively involved in the drug trade . In Baltimore this year -- just like last year and just like next year -- police will arrest tens of thousands of poor black men , mostly on drug charges . From the same pool , 200 will be shot and killed . Another 200 will do the killing . These are communities , like the Baltimore 's Eastern District , in which more than 10 % of men are murdered . If all of America had homicide levels found in parts of Baltimore , there would be over 300,000 murders per year ( as opposed to the still shamefully high 12,000 homicides in America ) . And yet some continue to think of police as the main problem rather than part of the solution . But Baltimore is not Ferguson . The police department is 50 % non-white . The mayor is black . So is the police commissioner . The city is 65 % African-American . So imagine you 're a young white cop , as I was , in a rough neighborhood . A nice retired African-American gentleman calls 911 because the kids in front of his house , also black , are rowdy , breaking bottles , selling drugs , and otherwise being disrespectful . Just out of the police academy , I pulled up to countless of these situations . What to do ? Usually I stopped , stared , and they moved on . Sometimes I would get out of my car . But I should n't have to . We all played by the same rules . It 's about respect . Sometimes I would ask politely . Sometimes I had to order rudely . Sometimes I would ask for ID . Sometimes I would frisk , search , or arrest . That 's what cops do . Every day . That 's what I did . I had to . That was my job . Ultimately police are in a no-win situation . And when things go wrong , they go wrong fast . People run . There are fights . Guns . People get hurt . Sometimes people die . Sometimes -- not very often -- it 's the police officer 's fault . But even if there were no racist or brutal cops -- if every cop were a polite , fit , college-educated , bilingual , African-American gentleman or woman -- this would n't solve the greater problems of the ghetto or even police abuse . Police abuse has less to do with race than poverty and class . And police will never solve the problems of absent parents , mass incarceration , or a violence culture centered around the economics of drug prohibition . Even so , rather than face up to our problems , we calls for the cops to do something , anything . Yes , bad cops need to be punished . But it 's too easy to blame police for all our problems . Problems police did not cause and can not solve . And then when a cop makes a mistake , as one inevitably will , we jump on all police with a confident smugness and unbecoming glee . The problems in policing mirror the problems of society . We can and should improve police . The best way to do that is to improve society . True justice requires us to look both inward for blame and outward to the suffering around us . The worst thing we could do is nothing at all .
Peter Moskos : When man died in police custody , many unfairly blamed all Baltimore cops . But cops are in a no-win situation . He says those who trashed city are part of larger societal woes of poverty and class . In just blaming cops , we ignore source of strife .