(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 don'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 can't be used in prosecution; police officers too have constitutional rights as criminal defendants) i don't know here's the thing: police officers who weren't there don'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 didn't just appear on monday, and they won't be gone tomorrow they live there, without jobs, education, mainstream social skills, or hope they don't come from stable families they don'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 shouldn'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 wouldn'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 cannot 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 baltimore
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 