David Simon posted his thoughts on last night’s events in Baltimore
The eyes of the world are on Baltimore as a weekend of protests erupted into civil unrest following the funeral of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died of a spinal cord injury while in police custody on April 12, last night. Now the city is under curfew and the National Guard has been brought in, leaving the citizens of Baltimore to sort out the conflicting viewpoints and complex issues that sparked yesterday’s events.
One of those citizens is David Simon, who spent years reporting on the city for The Baltimore Sun, collecting his observations in the book that would inspire Homicide: Life On The Streets and distilling them into the HBO series The Corner and The Wire. Late last night, Simon posted his thoughts on the situation in Baltimore on his personal website, The Audacity Of Despair, then appears to have spent the entire night engaging commenters in debate. With 471 comments as of this writing, there are too many to summarize here, but you can read the discussion in full on Simon’s blog. The full text of Simon’s original post is below.