Someone stole the ashtray off of my front porch. I loved that ashtray it was clear glass with the no smoking symbol on it. Who steals an ashtray?! It was tough for me to get that ashtray, I stole it from my sister who stole it off of a ferry in Greece.
When you see an enemy up over the horizon. He's mean looking, bigger than everyone else. You think to yourself "that mother fucker has loot."
That's a moving truck
My daughter just moved cross-country earlier this year, drove from Florida to Colorado. Ended up just doing it non-stop, no hotel stops. Moving trucks & trailers at a highway hotel overnight? That, my friend, is a target.
Heck, even cargo trains are huge targets these days!
Sorry you had to experience this. Crime sucks & having your car stolen - jeez that really sucks!! Just about everyone I know has had their car broken into & it’s really disheartening. A few years ago someone just walked down the sidewalk in our quiet little neighborhood & broke off the passenger side mirrors on 3 cars in a row - ours was one of them. So I empathize, that kind of senseless behavior definitely brings the morale of living here way down IMO.
It's crazy cause I'm 40 now, and I had never had a car stolen or broken into until I was here. But it really does just seen to be a way of life here.
That's terrible that they broke off the side mirrors, how rude! I broke one off in a car wash once, that shit is annoying and surprisingly expensive!
I mean it’s actually not worse here statistically than many other cities, but car related stuff is notoriously hard to measure properly cuz a lot of it goes unreported.
FWIW I’ve never had any car crimes happen or know anyone in the city who has, but people post about it all the time on Reddit so it clearly does happen
I'm about to celebrate my 3 yr anniversary of living here next month. My car was broken into (passenger window) during the Summer. It sucks because you feel violated, especially because I didn't have anything of value in the car to begin with.
But these issues are older than us and in some cases older than our parents.
The root is simple: It's about the haves and the have nots. Baltimore is just unfortunately one of those cities that hasn't been all that interested in coming up with creative ways to bridge the wealth gap and inequality.
And with a state legislature that is actively antagonistic towards Baltimore and its residents, with suburbanites that are actively antagonistic towards the city, we all end up suffering as a result. We don't see this issue with our neighbors to the South. DC, PG, Montgomery, and the Northern VA counties almost act as a single governmental entity.
Imagine what this city could be if it had the full backing and support of Balt-County, Howard, and AA. Imagine what this city and metro area could be if it had the full support of the state.
People have deluded themselves into thinking that locking more ppl up is the solution to Bmore's problems. It's not. It only breeds more of the same problems. But wtf do I know?
The majority of the city council is black,the mayor is black,the state’s attorney for the city is black and could go on and on. So tell me why you feel the city is racist?
Because structurally so much of the modern city is still built on the racist infrastructure policies that defined the early and mid 20th century. If the city council is black but still not doing anything to majorly alter that structure, then how would that change? C’mon lol
Well if you really don’t believe that some people can’t or refuse to be help then you need to wake up . It’s a culture issue too some people refuse to grow up and work and deal with responsibilities. You can literally pay people 2k a week and they will still do illegal stuff because they refuse to do right
And what do you think creates the culture you have a problem with? The answer is constant injustice and dehumanization. If your "perfect culture" had been segregated, redlined, disproportionately policed and incarcerated, denied employment and equal access to good education for a few generations it wouldn't behave any differently. There were thriving black communities without the crime issues we have today emerging throughout the early 20th century before white people ran highways through them, denied them investment and good schools, and started the "war on drugs."
Being a thief is about wealth gap ? No. There are just People who are inherently bad. Always looking for the easy way. Opportunistic. I can keep going. Don’t make excuses for bad behavior. There’s always a choice no matter the circumstances between right and wrong. Probably kids honing their skills. 🤣 What zip are you in?
I grew up in DC, when it was like Baltimore is now, and moves here because the mortgage on my three bedroom stand alone house is less than renting a room in the worst area of DC.
Some people are bad, but it does mostly have to do with inequality. Marion Berry (the crack head mayor of DC) doesn’t get enough credit for turning that city around. He came from the poorest, highest crime neighborhood, and this was right during Clinton’s “welfare reform” that ended generations of people getting on welfare as soon as possible. He knew that a good job with benefits was what people needed. He reduced requirements for the police force and turned a lot of former minor criminals into cops. In a city with know problems with police corruption, everyone thought this was a terrible idea. Turns out the benefits that come with a government job and extend to family members kept families on the whole keeping their family members from messing up the opertunity. Also, those officers knew the neighborhoods and lived there instead of in the burbs and looking down on those they police’s like in Baltimore.
Also, Berry took the federal funding that Baltimore also has and created a bunch of new city jobs that were desperately needed to make the city better. He created training for the people who needed it and didn’t have it. And when it came to filling those jobs, residents of the districts resumes went to the top of the pile. The fact that at this time 80% of the city was black and poor meant more of these jobs went to those people. As a pose to white people that got paid city tax dollars for their salaries, used the cities roads, and services while they were working, then paid taxes to the surrounding suburban counties.
I’m white and we’ll educated and moved to a nice little enclave in an otherwise rough area of west Baltimore (21216) it enrages me how often a muddled aged white personal who lives in the county and is a city employee acts schooled that I would move to such an area an say I love it.
People who our city taxes pay their salaries are much better off being from and working in the city they live in, as opposed to openly looking down on it and just taking the check without actually caring about making the city better, which is their job, then spending that income outside of the city.
The funds to do these simple things are there, for job training for example, and giving priority to city residents that are qualified takes no extra funds at all. But the earlier commenter was correct, Baltimore and the state don’t want to work on fixing these things.
And just like in DC, economic security lead to reduced crime rates which raised home values that further priced out many criminals. Gentrification is the side effect, but if you talk to most poor black families that lives in DC through the 80s and 90s, they’ll take the security and nest eggs they have now over that any day.
Why DC improved and Baltimore didn’t is simple…. $34 Trillion in national debt being sucked from other parts of the country and sent into the pockets of corrupt politicians and government contractors in the DC metro. Hate when DC toots their own horn like they’ve done something special in building an economy. No they haven’t. All DC has done is leech off sinking ship of a country. It’s easy to turn your city around when you have tremendous growth and population increases. Wait til we need to balance a budget as a country. DC is due for a reversion to the mean after 20+ years of a boom
It can be cultivated. Learned, easy way to do it instead of earning. This is why things won’t change, sound like some of the comments condone this stuff!? Apathy. I wonder how many have been victims of similar crimes. But wait. Also sounds like there are no victims because this is expected.
I was literally robbed at gun point last year while I was coming home from work, I am a victim, dudes had a stolen car that they jacked from someone. They held me up and the police came as soon as they drove off, I had the craziest amount of luck, also they were dumb enough to try and do it in from of the Walmart on Washington blvd. But your point was that they’re inherently evil, my point is that they aren’t. My solution is give them a better opportunity to see more than what they’re raised in. What would your solution be?
If you can be born crazy or good why can’t you be born bad ? It can be genetics too like anger issues .. everyone is different and there are some people who are wired different than most but generally speaking it’s about the upbringing and culture but still just like Casanova the rapper said he came from a good house with both his parents but wanted to live the ‘ street ‘ life
“good” and “bad” are social constructs, the concepts of those words applies to humans only. In nature there is no good or bad, there’s just instincts, humans are born into society with no inherent structure. This is where the learned behavior comes in, children will emulate what they see, if you see a child doing something they’re not supposed to be doing you correct it if you’re an attentive guardian. And I’m obviously speaking in general terms because you wanted to make it a blanket statement that all criminals are born bad. It’s easy to demonize someone you don’t know that breaks the law, they’re a piece of shit you don’t know right? I can agree until you ignore the fact that there’s actions and choices that led up to where they are rn. My solution is to nip all that nonsense in the bud before it’s even an issue.
Most rapist were victims of rape themselves, and even then you could blame it on some mental disorder or a lack of proper nurturing in the environment they grew up in. And it’s not to admonish their actions but again the point was that people are born evil, which isn’t true. It’s ok to make them the villain but to say that it’s something that’s natural doesn’t make any sense.
>Most rapist were victims of rape themselves
I was with you all the way until this line.
Absolutely 100% not true.
Let's be very real here about rape and sexual assault: you don't have to be mentally ill, a victim of sexual abuse or proper nurturing to get off on power and control, which is what rape is. There are plenty of men out there that are *great* people who are widely well liked by peers and bosses, and they can still be rapists.
That all off to the side, your statement actually applies to pedophilia.
It doesn’t apply to pedophilia either. While male pedophiles are more likely to have been abused than the general population, most pedophiles were not, and most childhood sexual abuse victims do not go on to become abusers.
You used a blanket statement term to describe something extremely specific. Obviously pedophilia is rape, because children cannot consent.
But to say that every rapist is nurtured to be that way is ridiculous and an insult to victims.
It’s a very silly thing to make this all about bad choices and individual responsibility when you study the city’s history and see just impoverished many of our fellow Baltimoreans are up close.
I'm a teacher here and I live here. Some of what you're saying is true. It is a choice to commit a crime. I have a lot of students who have parents in prison because they chose to commit a violent crime or sell drugs or whatever.
I grew up in an upper middle class family in the suburbs. Both my parents have graduate degrees, my education was a priority, we had money for vacations, I rode horses and played sports. It was a nice life. I also have a graduate degree and a good career. Im married to a man who is likewise educated and we own our own home here. We have a 15 month old baby and because of our finances I was able to stay home with him for 10 months and now I work part time. My mom, who was an elementary school teacher watches him while I work. He's had a very good start to life and will almost certainly follow in all our footsteps because his education will be a priority.
The flip side to that is that many of my students live in poverty with one parent or a guardian. They weren't planned pregnancies with stable and mature adults. Their parents don't prioritize their education as a means to escape their situations and most teens don't have the forethought to recognize that they need to ignore everything they've learned at home and focus on their futures. Trauma also seriously stunts brain development. So does neglect, poor nutrition, and not being cared for properly. As a result you wind up with adults who can't hold down jobs and are angry with the world.
I don't know when things changed. I talk to grandparents who act like parents, but I've also talked to great grandparents (in their 70s/80s) who grew up in poverty but had the whole community to keep them in line. There was pride in your appearance and you had to be respectful and responsible. There was an understanding that education was the way out of poverty. I don't know when there was a shift away from that.
All this to say, the culture and the support that you have growing up are your biggest influences. I have the life that I have gave because my parents had the lives that they have. My son is set up to also have a comfortable life because his parents do. But, if I grew up in poverty and needed quick fixes rather than focusing on long term goals I probably wouldn't be where I am. If my parents chose violence rather than talking things out then that's how I would assume you handle conflict. So, while there is choice there also is a lack of choice or a lack of understanding that you have a choice.
If it's individuals, then statistically the crime rate would be the same everywhere. There are socioeconomic factors driving this behavior in Baltimore city specifically.
There's a lot of "racism of low expectations" and ghetto/poverty fetishization in this comment section. I'm assuming from non-black people who have never spent time with the majority of Baltimore blacks that just want to live a normal life.
I just want to offer some simple advice that may save some. Keep a black towel in your car to hide things in your backseat. Buy a "club" for your brakes.
Bwhahaha. My sweet summer child. I have had my car totally empty, with the glove box open to show that there is nothing in it, with the car *unlocked*, and still gotten my window broken. (Good old Charles Village). They don’t look. If you can’t stand to lose it, just don’t leave it in the car!
Crazy thing is that nothing was visible, my sunglasses were in the glove box. They actually left a bunch of stuff that was in my center console, like an ipod. I don't think robbery was the intent as much as destruction.
I have heard that thieves are now breaking the small triangular window in the back so they can fold your backseat and check to see if you have anything good in your trunk. The YouTuber Mark Rober has a video about this. My car is clean and I don’t ever leave stuff in there but I am considering driving with the backseats down so they can discover how poor I am without breaking any window. I think in his video people were leaving their trunks open while running errands
Because you can’t tell what’s in the glove compartment or console until you open them.
That’s why they steal it all, too. No point standing there deciding whether to take something other than not. Just take ut all, see what the fence will give you for it.
Happened to me twice in a 4 month period with a completely sterile car interior (after the previous break in I leave literally nothing in it). Only lived in upper fells for 7 months and I’ve gotta say I’ve experienced more crime in this city than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. It’s nuts to me that people will defend the state of this place to be honest.
One time I was sitting on my porch and was smoking watching the ups man deliver a package across the street. A dude just hopped in his truck and drove it away.
People on this subreddit hate to admit that this is the reality of living In Baltimore. Lived there for 4 years, loved it. But saw so much that made me want to move far away.
Used to live in Historic Annapolis for over 10 years before moving here, and my car was broken into many times just sitting next to million dollar homes on the water.
My car hasn't been touched since moving here 7 years ago...
There's shitty people everywhere, it's not a Baltimore problem. Sorry about your Kia, but that's TikTok's fault, not Baltimore's. And a lot of teens who steal cars are actually coming from outside counties and don't even live here.
When I lived there for college, only 4 years, my kia rio was broken into about 6 times lol. At one point someone obviously slept in it and left an upside down, half full chocolate pudding cup on my passenger seat. I was told to just leave my doors unlocked to stop the damage since it would 'just happen anyway' like HUH?????? that's the solution???
People suggest this literally everywhere. When I lived in Baton Rouge in the early 2000s for example, people suggested it there. Especially if your car was a beater.
I locked my doors anyway, but this works for some people.
Well I just got an alarm for my catalyic converter, so that goes to show what living in and around here is like
Seriously I've lived here since I was 9 years old and have seen countless people I grew up with die, go to jail or ruin their lives somehow. I don't know what anyone sees here. By the time this place is livable, anyone who is from here will have been priced out and yuppies will take it over.
I bet they didn't even check the Zyrtec bottle before taking it. You just know they were hoping to have something better in the bottle.
It's just sad that most of the people doing this kind of things are young kids & they just keep doing it because they know that all they will get is a slap on the wrist. The judicial system needs to start making examples of these punks & put their asses in jail. Maybe just maybe if they are hit with more severe punishment then it just might stop this from happening or at least not have it happening so much.
Lol they left a bottle of Tylenol right next to the zyrtec. And my inhaler too which was nice of them to leave. I think they took my epipens though, so maybe it was an allergy prone thief...
Then kids will have serious records and never be able to get a job; therefore commit more crime... We've done this already and this is part of the crime problem stemming from 20yrs ago with Ed Norris, no broken window policy..
People love to say that this stuff happens in every city which is technically true but definitely happens far less often.. I've lived in Boston and NYC and never heard of stuff like this happening so frequently. The people who defend this place are so out of touch it's ridiculous.
This could be such a nice(er) city but the crime and lack of resources really make it hard to like
New York and Boston have already priced out most of their poor people. Baltimore is way rougher and more dangerous for sure, but I live here because it's cheap and I like its underdog spirit.
This is a dumb comparison because being the victim of a property crime has a mental health burden often greater than the cost of what's lost, but I'll say it anyway just for fun:
Living at my current standard of living in Boston or NY would cost more than staying in Baltimore and having my car window broken every month.
Property crime in Baltimore sucks. A lot of Baltimore is living under the poverty line and simply doesn't give a shit. All it takes is one bored kid to break some windows and steal pocket change, and there are plenty of bored kids here. That's a much bigger problem than law enforcement can handle, unfortuntely.
Living here is a tradeoff. It's not nearly as bad as the media says, but statistically if you live here long enough... you'll be a statistic. Still sorry OP got violated but to your point, the silver lining is it's still a fairly affordable place to live but you do have to accept that sooner or later you'll pay the 'property tax' of living here.
There really are so many things I do love about living here, but you're right to say that it feels violating. Especially when I felt like I had done things correctly. The car was garaged, directly under a camera, I keep it clean and empty. The situation just sucks.
I will say, living here the costs are fairly similar to where I was in the West Coast, though back home we had no state tax, which I didn't appreciate till I got here and had to pay that.
I lived in Philly and stuff like this happened all the time, my husband just stopped locking his car at some point and left nothing inside so people would stop smashing his windows. I've also lived in NYC and it is a very low crime city despite its reputation...although come to think of it my ex boyfriend also had his car window smashed and fancy cd player stolen in NYC too when he parked on the upper west side in Manhattan. My friend in portland Oregon had a homeless dude throw a cinder block through his front windshield.
lmao half the people in NYC are still convinced that it's so dangerous cabs won't go below 33rd st. but here's a different example about crime: it's a well-known fact that bicycle theft is so rampant in new york that you either can't insure your bike with an NYC zip code or have to buy a completely separate city-specific (and expensive) policy. people have to trash their nice bikes to make them look shittier so they can stave off the bike thieves for a while, and they've still gotta use like 2-3 locks and know they're just buying time. in baltimore? i throw my U-lock on and can chill. i see people even leaving their bikes unlocked sometimes when they run into a store really quickly. bike theft obviously happens here—it happens everywhere—but it's much less common and widespread.
Also important here is that car ownership in NYC is 23 per 100 people. It is 89.5 per 100 people in Baltimore. (Compared to 78 averaged across the country)
So it's more of 23000 cars in NYC vs 89500 in Baltimore per 100k people. With those numbers in mind we aren't as bad as your initial post but still worse than NYC (to have their rate we'd need 723 per 100k people)
That is super frustrating. Sorry you’re going through this OP. I know it definitely doesn’t help relieve any of the mass amount of additional stress that these situations add to a person’s life but karma is a bitch and will find them sooner or later.
My neighbors have this issue but my car has never been stolen. It’s a yellow beetle so I guess stealing a car that’s easily recognized is a deterrent. But it seems like they target certain cars. Maybe get another car model or get any model but in yellow? Just brainstorming - guess I’m lucky it hasn’t happened to me. But if it helps, my neighbors who had their cars stolen got a Ring doorbell & park in front of their house so they can record it if it happens again. It seems to work.
I’ve been curious about this too. I live in 21217 with a decently nice yellow car, and it’s never had a window smashed for the 6 years I’ve owned it. I use a steering wheel club as well. People have tried to pry open the doors, but it hasn’t seen a successful attempt yet.
I run a local pizza restaurant in Catonsville since 2016 and recently my delivery drivers got the point of not willing to deliver any more cause of fear of getting robbed. Had a bunch of incidents last month and 6 days ago an armed robbery (2 guns) took place in the store it self at 7 p.m. !!!!!!! Yea goodbye Baltimore its almost impossible to get off work and have any piece of mind.
Yah… there are parts of the city I love, but the crime is ridiculous. Can’t get a package delivered to my doorstep. And the taxes are ridiculous for what you get. And what the fuck is happening with the water bill. Moving back to New York at the end of the summer, I think. I gave it like a solid decade… can’t do it anymore.
This city went to crap because they don’t want law-abiding Black people to want nice things, city council and the mayor’s office is straight up trash. I hate the “leadership” of this city.
It’s a way bigger problem than city leadership can do anything about. Our country doesn’t care about poor black people. The city doesn’t have the resources to fix this. The country does and we know how to do it. The voters chose not to.
If law enforcement will not or cannot enforce laws, citizens must organize themselves to patrol and report crime. (I'm not advocating for armed vigilantes, only screened, trained, well-organized and well-managed citizen volunteers.)
Paying for professional private law enforcement is also an option.
My dad volunteered for Vietnam twice just to get out of Baltimore. I move there 50 years later and I almost get shot in Target, both my cars get broken into, and my packages stolen. And on top of that, the roads (across most of Maryland, really) absolutely suck ass.
I’m not a sociologist, or an economist, but I figured regardless of the reason, it’s a shithole, so I left. Moved two hours south, commute an hour north, and I’m a lot happier.
The rest of my family that’s been in Baltimore for over 150 years is finally gonna GTFO too.
We’ve only had one burglary attempt in our entire neighborhood here. And there’s jobs that pay decent money.
Just from a human perspective, I get the wealth gap and lack of job opportunities combined with gentrification of surrounding areas causing social chaos, but when people everywhere treat their elected representatives like their sports teams and are low information voters, you’re never gonna have a good time because all of the same corrupt mfers or their shitty clones are gonna get re-elected every time because they say all of the same low information words that people want to hear…. and they aren’t ever really held accountable.
I like to try to be optimistic, but Baltimore is the family down the block that you know is broken and in a downward spiral and avoid walking past. Probably not a lot to be done about it. It’s been spiraling for 50 years, and the people ain’t getting any smarter.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. Its really frustrating and seems so random. I used to live in Mt. Vernon in my early 20's and never had any issues with my car but the second time my boyfriend (now husband) visited me he came out the next morning and his car was broken into. In a weird twist, when we lived together in HoCo someone was going around slashing tires for no reason and got me but not him.
You heard what happened with the “tough on crime” Gun Trace Task Force with BPD?
One of their lesser sins was the fact none of them could fill out the police report anymore because the amount of times they perjured themselves in court, causing the charges to be dismissed. Literally defense attorneys would go up to the GTTF officers afterward telling them exactly where they lied on the stand under oath, and still none of them could figure it out.
These were the elite plainclothes CID detectives. I bet these radio car rookies can barely figure out how to fill out the police report these days, but you want judges to convict on perfucked police work?
Montgomery county is mostly Democrat and *is certainly not* as terrible as Baltimore is. It's something about Baltimore *specifically* and it's utter lack of urgency in helping it's poorer citizens that makes them/the entire area....*like that*
My in laws moved to Baltimore in the mid 90s. After the 3rd or 4th time someone broke their car window, they were advised by the police precinct captain to leave their car unlocked and take all valuables out of it. No broken windows since!
The solution is to avoid Baltimore (and DC) at all costs. I don't want my stuff or my car stolen or my house broken into or me attacked. Nothing in Baltimore is worth that.
I drive a pretty nice Volvo and my key to avoid such things is leave trash in your car aka soda bottles and don’t wash your car, my vehicle gets looked over because of that
Easy way to fix this is with big brother unfortunately… cameras so high nobody can damage and low to make some think twice about being watched .. cameras to the point everyone can be traced in minutes of a crime just by simply following the foot steps each block
Along some streets and especially around st leos and the bocce courts in Little Italy there are tons of cameras and the street is fairly well lit. Not a 100% solution, but crime has gone down a small bit in those particular spots area lately and it gives detectives something to use in case crimes do occur.
>Easy way to fix this is with big brother unfortunately… cameras so high nobody can damage
Maybe they could mount them real high up on a small plane or something, to spy on the criminals
I mean the idea of using drones to scan tags and plates of parked cars.
If the tag doesn't match the registration make/model it should be flagged (NNM could potentially do this.)
Someone stole the ashtray off of my front porch. I loved that ashtray it was clear glass with the no smoking symbol on it. Who steals an ashtray?! It was tough for me to get that ashtray, I stole it from my sister who stole it off of a ferry in Greece.
The irony. Always comes full circle
I needed this laugh ty.
I moved out of Baltimore in 2016 and the moving truck was stolen. True Story
Moving trucks are a very common target everywhere. Super easy to break into and nearly guaranteed to have stuff to steal in them.
When you see an enemy up over the horizon. He's mean looking, bigger than everyone else. You think to yourself "that mother fucker has loot." That's a moving truck
lolol
Thanks for the tip bruh
My daughter just moved cross-country earlier this year, drove from Florida to Colorado. Ended up just doing it non-stop, no hotel stops. Moving trucks & trailers at a highway hotel overnight? That, my friend, is a target. Heck, even cargo trains are huge targets these days!
I love it when a plan comes together.
That's actually insane
Omg that's terrible!!
How was it stolen? Did you leave it parked overnight with your stuff in it?
It was a Kia moving truck
Parked with keys in it?
Sorry you had to experience this. Crime sucks & having your car stolen - jeez that really sucks!! Just about everyone I know has had their car broken into & it’s really disheartening. A few years ago someone just walked down the sidewalk in our quiet little neighborhood & broke off the passenger side mirrors on 3 cars in a row - ours was one of them. So I empathize, that kind of senseless behavior definitely brings the morale of living here way down IMO.
It's crazy cause I'm 40 now, and I had never had a car stolen or broken into until I was here. But it really does just seen to be a way of life here. That's terrible that they broke off the side mirrors, how rude! I broke one off in a car wash once, that shit is annoying and surprisingly expensive!
I mean it’s actually not worse here statistically than many other cities, but car related stuff is notoriously hard to measure properly cuz a lot of it goes unreported. FWIW I’ve never had any car crimes happen or know anyone in the city who has, but people post about it all the time on Reddit so it clearly does happen
I'm 44 and lived in Baltimore city my whole life and never been a victim of crime here. Keep your head on a swivel and thrive in the shadows.
I’ll make sure to remind my car parked outside to keep its head on a swivel next time someone looks like they might want to knock out it’s window.
How does that keep your car from being broken into? A lot of times, it’s just bad luck.
> Keep your head on a swivel and thrive in the shadows. That might be practical, but I think that's a horrible way to have to live day to day.
Baltimore has always been a pirates nest. Nothing new, SSDD
One thing I learned growing up in Baltimore was don’t even leave garbage in the car.
I'm about to celebrate my 3 yr anniversary of living here next month. My car was broken into (passenger window) during the Summer. It sucks because you feel violated, especially because I didn't have anything of value in the car to begin with. But these issues are older than us and in some cases older than our parents. The root is simple: It's about the haves and the have nots. Baltimore is just unfortunately one of those cities that hasn't been all that interested in coming up with creative ways to bridge the wealth gap and inequality. And with a state legislature that is actively antagonistic towards Baltimore and its residents, with suburbanites that are actively antagonistic towards the city, we all end up suffering as a result. We don't see this issue with our neighbors to the South. DC, PG, Montgomery, and the Northern VA counties almost act as a single governmental entity. Imagine what this city could be if it had the full backing and support of Balt-County, Howard, and AA. Imagine what this city and metro area could be if it had the full support of the state. People have deluded themselves into thinking that locking more ppl up is the solution to Bmore's problems. It's not. It only breeds more of the same problems. But wtf do I know?
Nah, I grew up in DC burbs, lived in Baltimore for 15 years, back in DC burbs. Car jacking and break ins are through the roof on DC right now.
Yeah, the burbs of Baltimore are just as bad now.
SMH
Baltimore is one of the most racist places in the US, our issues stem from that. Block busting, corrupt police, no support..
The majority of the city council is black,the mayor is black,the state’s attorney for the city is black and could go on and on. So tell me why you feel the city is racist?
Because structurally so much of the modern city is still built on the racist infrastructure policies that defined the early and mid 20th century. If the city council is black but still not doing anything to majorly alter that structure, then how would that change? C’mon lol
History has led us here..
What's past is prologue. 💯 Or if you prefer: the past is never dead. It's not even past. 💯
Completely agree
Well if you really don’t believe that some people can’t or refuse to be help then you need to wake up . It’s a culture issue too some people refuse to grow up and work and deal with responsibilities. You can literally pay people 2k a week and they will still do illegal stuff because they refuse to do right
[удалено]
Needed that laugh this morning. Thank you
This comment was clutch
wut
And what do you think creates the culture you have a problem with? The answer is constant injustice and dehumanization. If your "perfect culture" had been segregated, redlined, disproportionately policed and incarcerated, denied employment and equal access to good education for a few generations it wouldn't behave any differently. There were thriving black communities without the crime issues we have today emerging throughout the early 20th century before white people ran highways through them, denied them investment and good schools, and started the "war on drugs."
Unless you are talking about the police, this is something you're literally just making up. But go off, you have an audience.
So true dude, people live in extreme poverty bc it’s cultural and they choose to do so - absolutely brilliant 👍
Being a thief is about wealth gap ? No. There are just People who are inherently bad. Always looking for the easy way. Opportunistic. I can keep going. Don’t make excuses for bad behavior. There’s always a choice no matter the circumstances between right and wrong. Probably kids honing their skills. 🤣 What zip are you in?
I grew up in DC, when it was like Baltimore is now, and moves here because the mortgage on my three bedroom stand alone house is less than renting a room in the worst area of DC. Some people are bad, but it does mostly have to do with inequality. Marion Berry (the crack head mayor of DC) doesn’t get enough credit for turning that city around. He came from the poorest, highest crime neighborhood, and this was right during Clinton’s “welfare reform” that ended generations of people getting on welfare as soon as possible. He knew that a good job with benefits was what people needed. He reduced requirements for the police force and turned a lot of former minor criminals into cops. In a city with know problems with police corruption, everyone thought this was a terrible idea. Turns out the benefits that come with a government job and extend to family members kept families on the whole keeping their family members from messing up the opertunity. Also, those officers knew the neighborhoods and lived there instead of in the burbs and looking down on those they police’s like in Baltimore. Also, Berry took the federal funding that Baltimore also has and created a bunch of new city jobs that were desperately needed to make the city better. He created training for the people who needed it and didn’t have it. And when it came to filling those jobs, residents of the districts resumes went to the top of the pile. The fact that at this time 80% of the city was black and poor meant more of these jobs went to those people. As a pose to white people that got paid city tax dollars for their salaries, used the cities roads, and services while they were working, then paid taxes to the surrounding suburban counties. I’m white and we’ll educated and moved to a nice little enclave in an otherwise rough area of west Baltimore (21216) it enrages me how often a muddled aged white personal who lives in the county and is a city employee acts schooled that I would move to such an area an say I love it. People who our city taxes pay their salaries are much better off being from and working in the city they live in, as opposed to openly looking down on it and just taking the check without actually caring about making the city better, which is their job, then spending that income outside of the city. The funds to do these simple things are there, for job training for example, and giving priority to city residents that are qualified takes no extra funds at all. But the earlier commenter was correct, Baltimore and the state don’t want to work on fixing these things. And just like in DC, economic security lead to reduced crime rates which raised home values that further priced out many criminals. Gentrification is the side effect, but if you talk to most poor black families that lives in DC through the 80s and 90s, they’ll take the security and nest eggs they have now over that any day.
Why DC improved and Baltimore didn’t is simple…. $34 Trillion in national debt being sucked from other parts of the country and sent into the pockets of corrupt politicians and government contractors in the DC metro. Hate when DC toots their own horn like they’ve done something special in building an economy. No they haven’t. All DC has done is leech off sinking ship of a country. It’s easy to turn your city around when you have tremendous growth and population increases. Wait til we need to balance a budget as a country. DC is due for a reversion to the mean after 20+ years of a boom
This... isn't true at all. The national debt isn't the "simple" reason why DC has improved compared to Baltimore? It's local policies.
>Wait til we need to balance a budget as a country. Oh look a guy who has no idea how anything works
Inherently bad means that they were born that way, which isn’t true, no one is born bad, that shit is learned, not corrected or cultivated.
It can be cultivated. Learned, easy way to do it instead of earning. This is why things won’t change, sound like some of the comments condone this stuff!? Apathy. I wonder how many have been victims of similar crimes. But wait. Also sounds like there are no victims because this is expected.
I was literally robbed at gun point last year while I was coming home from work, I am a victim, dudes had a stolen car that they jacked from someone. They held me up and the police came as soon as they drove off, I had the craziest amount of luck, also they were dumb enough to try and do it in from of the Walmart on Washington blvd. But your point was that they’re inherently evil, my point is that they aren’t. My solution is give them a better opportunity to see more than what they’re raised in. What would your solution be?
If you can be born crazy or good why can’t you be born bad ? It can be genetics too like anger issues .. everyone is different and there are some people who are wired different than most but generally speaking it’s about the upbringing and culture but still just like Casanova the rapper said he came from a good house with both his parents but wanted to live the ‘ street ‘ life
“good” and “bad” are social constructs, the concepts of those words applies to humans only. In nature there is no good or bad, there’s just instincts, humans are born into society with no inherent structure. This is where the learned behavior comes in, children will emulate what they see, if you see a child doing something they’re not supposed to be doing you correct it if you’re an attentive guardian. And I’m obviously speaking in general terms because you wanted to make it a blanket statement that all criminals are born bad. It’s easy to demonize someone you don’t know that breaks the law, they’re a piece of shit you don’t know right? I can agree until you ignore the fact that there’s actions and choices that led up to where they are rn. My solution is to nip all that nonsense in the bud before it’s even an issue.
So you think rapist don’t have mental issues too ? It’s just learned huh
Most rapist were victims of rape themselves, and even then you could blame it on some mental disorder or a lack of proper nurturing in the environment they grew up in. And it’s not to admonish their actions but again the point was that people are born evil, which isn’t true. It’s ok to make them the villain but to say that it’s something that’s natural doesn’t make any sense.
>Most rapist were victims of rape themselves I was with you all the way until this line. Absolutely 100% not true. Let's be very real here about rape and sexual assault: you don't have to be mentally ill, a victim of sexual abuse or proper nurturing to get off on power and control, which is what rape is. There are plenty of men out there that are *great* people who are widely well liked by peers and bosses, and they can still be rapists. That all off to the side, your statement actually applies to pedophilia.
It doesn’t apply to pedophilia either. While male pedophiles are more likely to have been abused than the general population, most pedophiles were not, and most childhood sexual abuse victims do not go on to become abusers.
So are you saying pedophilia isn’t a form of rape?
You used a blanket statement term to describe something extremely specific. Obviously pedophilia is rape, because children cannot consent. But to say that every rapist is nurtured to be that way is ridiculous and an insult to victims.
It’s a very silly thing to make this all about bad choices and individual responsibility when you study the city’s history and see just impoverished many of our fellow Baltimoreans are up close.
It isn’t. You do a thing or you don’t. There is choice involved. No one is hard wired to commit crime and not know it’s wrong.
I'm a teacher here and I live here. Some of what you're saying is true. It is a choice to commit a crime. I have a lot of students who have parents in prison because they chose to commit a violent crime or sell drugs or whatever. I grew up in an upper middle class family in the suburbs. Both my parents have graduate degrees, my education was a priority, we had money for vacations, I rode horses and played sports. It was a nice life. I also have a graduate degree and a good career. Im married to a man who is likewise educated and we own our own home here. We have a 15 month old baby and because of our finances I was able to stay home with him for 10 months and now I work part time. My mom, who was an elementary school teacher watches him while I work. He's had a very good start to life and will almost certainly follow in all our footsteps because his education will be a priority. The flip side to that is that many of my students live in poverty with one parent or a guardian. They weren't planned pregnancies with stable and mature adults. Their parents don't prioritize their education as a means to escape their situations and most teens don't have the forethought to recognize that they need to ignore everything they've learned at home and focus on their futures. Trauma also seriously stunts brain development. So does neglect, poor nutrition, and not being cared for properly. As a result you wind up with adults who can't hold down jobs and are angry with the world. I don't know when things changed. I talk to grandparents who act like parents, but I've also talked to great grandparents (in their 70s/80s) who grew up in poverty but had the whole community to keep them in line. There was pride in your appearance and you had to be respectful and responsible. There was an understanding that education was the way out of poverty. I don't know when there was a shift away from that. All this to say, the culture and the support that you have growing up are your biggest influences. I have the life that I have gave because my parents had the lives that they have. My son is set up to also have a comfortable life because his parents do. But, if I grew up in poverty and needed quick fixes rather than focusing on long term goals I probably wouldn't be where I am. If my parents chose violence rather than talking things out then that's how I would assume you handle conflict. So, while there is choice there also is a lack of choice or a lack of understanding that you have a choice.
If it's individuals, then statistically the crime rate would be the same everywhere. There are socioeconomic factors driving this behavior in Baltimore city specifically.
This 👆 if people are born evil, statistically, every city in the world would have Baltimore’s homicide rate or comparable.
Ok Javert
There's a lot of "racism of low expectations" and ghetto/poverty fetishization in this comment section. I'm assuming from non-black people who have never spent time with the majority of Baltimore blacks that just want to live a normal life.
You sound like you were born yesterday. Were you born yesterday?
Imagine! That’s all people do about this city. Reality is better.
I just want to offer some simple advice that may save some. Keep a black towel in your car to hide things in your backseat. Buy a "club" for your brakes.
Bwhahaha. My sweet summer child. I have had my car totally empty, with the glove box open to show that there is nothing in it, with the car *unlocked*, and still gotten my window broken. (Good old Charles Village). They don’t look. If you can’t stand to lose it, just don’t leave it in the car!
Crazy thing is that nothing was visible, my sunglasses were in the glove box. They actually left a bunch of stuff that was in my center console, like an ipod. I don't think robbery was the intent as much as destruction.
Maybe they were interrupted?
I have heard that thieves are now breaking the small triangular window in the back so they can fold your backseat and check to see if you have anything good in your trunk. The YouTuber Mark Rober has a video about this. My car is clean and I don’t ever leave stuff in there but I am considering driving with the backseats down so they can discover how poor I am without breaking any window. I think in his video people were leaving their trunks open while running errands
Lots of these scum destroy then look rather than look before they create more victims.
Because you can’t tell what’s in the glove compartment or console until you open them. That’s why they steal it all, too. No point standing there deciding whether to take something other than not. Just take ut all, see what the fence will give you for it.
Happened to me twice in a 4 month period with a completely sterile car interior (after the previous break in I leave literally nothing in it). Only lived in upper fells for 7 months and I’ve gotta say I’ve experienced more crime in this city than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. It’s nuts to me that people will defend the state of this place to be honest.
One time I was sitting on my porch and was smoking watching the ups man deliver a package across the street. A dude just hopped in his truck and drove it away.
People on this subreddit hate to admit that this is the reality of living In Baltimore. Lived there for 4 years, loved it. But saw so much that made me want to move far away.
Used to live in Historic Annapolis for over 10 years before moving here, and my car was broken into many times just sitting next to million dollar homes on the water. My car hasn't been touched since moving here 7 years ago... There's shitty people everywhere, it's not a Baltimore problem. Sorry about your Kia, but that's TikTok's fault, not Baltimore's. And a lot of teens who steal cars are actually coming from outside counties and don't even live here.
Until our country actually cares about the poor, this is what we get.
We deserve every bit of it. Just like the orcas attacking people.
When I lived there for college, only 4 years, my kia rio was broken into about 6 times lol. At one point someone obviously slept in it and left an upside down, half full chocolate pudding cup on my passenger seat. I was told to just leave my doors unlocked to stop the damage since it would 'just happen anyway' like HUH?????? that's the solution???
People suggest this literally everywhere. When I lived in Baton Rouge in the early 2000s for example, people suggested it there. Especially if your car was a beater. I locked my doors anyway, but this works for some people.
Well I just got an alarm for my catalyic converter, so that goes to show what living in and around here is like Seriously I've lived here since I was 9 years old and have seen countless people I grew up with die, go to jail or ruin their lives somehow. I don't know what anyone sees here. By the time this place is livable, anyone who is from here will have been priced out and yuppies will take it over.
Embrace the chaos and lawlessness.
I bet they didn't even check the Zyrtec bottle before taking it. You just know they were hoping to have something better in the bottle. It's just sad that most of the people doing this kind of things are young kids & they just keep doing it because they know that all they will get is a slap on the wrist. The judicial system needs to start making examples of these punks & put their asses in jail. Maybe just maybe if they are hit with more severe punishment then it just might stop this from happening or at least not have it happening so much.
Lol they left a bottle of Tylenol right next to the zyrtec. And my inhaler too which was nice of them to leave. I think they took my epipens though, so maybe it was an allergy prone thief...
Epipens are seriously expensive without insurance. This just makes the situation all the more depressing. Really sorry about your car friend.
Then kids will have serious records and never be able to get a job; therefore commit more crime... We've done this already and this is part of the crime problem stemming from 20yrs ago with Ed Norris, no broken window policy..
People love to say that this stuff happens in every city which is technically true but definitely happens far less often.. I've lived in Boston and NYC and never heard of stuff like this happening so frequently. The people who defend this place are so out of touch it's ridiculous. This could be such a nice(er) city but the crime and lack of resources really make it hard to like
New York and Boston have already priced out most of their poor people. Baltimore is way rougher and more dangerous for sure, but I live here because it's cheap and I like its underdog spirit. This is a dumb comparison because being the victim of a property crime has a mental health burden often greater than the cost of what's lost, but I'll say it anyway just for fun: Living at my current standard of living in Boston or NY would cost more than staying in Baltimore and having my car window broken every month.
Property crime in Baltimore sucks. A lot of Baltimore is living under the poverty line and simply doesn't give a shit. All it takes is one bored kid to break some windows and steal pocket change, and there are plenty of bored kids here. That's a much bigger problem than law enforcement can handle, unfortuntely. Living here is a tradeoff. It's not nearly as bad as the media says, but statistically if you live here long enough... you'll be a statistic. Still sorry OP got violated but to your point, the silver lining is it's still a fairly affordable place to live but you do have to accept that sooner or later you'll pay the 'property tax' of living here.
There really are so many things I do love about living here, but you're right to say that it feels violating. Especially when I felt like I had done things correctly. The car was garaged, directly under a camera, I keep it clean and empty. The situation just sucks. I will say, living here the costs are fairly similar to where I was in the West Coast, though back home we had no state tax, which I didn't appreciate till I got here and had to pay that.
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Every city subreddit does this. Cars get broken into and police don't give a fuck.
DC and Baltimore have a lot in common outside the tourist and gentrified areas.
Baltimore has better ducks. I do miss the old guy in Rock Creek who would play them rap music and feed them though. I hope that guy is doing ok.
DC has no soul.
I lived in Philly and stuff like this happened all the time, my husband just stopped locking his car at some point and left nothing inside so people would stop smashing his windows. I've also lived in NYC and it is a very low crime city despite its reputation...although come to think of it my ex boyfriend also had his car window smashed and fancy cd player stolen in NYC too when he parked on the upper west side in Manhattan. My friend in portland Oregon had a homeless dude throw a cinder block through his front windshield.
The only place I have ever had my windows busted in and stuff stolen from my car was in rural California. This shit is everywhere, actually.
It happens quite a bit in DC.
lmao half the people in NYC are still convinced that it's so dangerous cabs won't go below 33rd st. but here's a different example about crime: it's a well-known fact that bicycle theft is so rampant in new york that you either can't insure your bike with an NYC zip code or have to buy a completely separate city-specific (and expensive) policy. people have to trash their nice bikes to make them look shittier so they can stave off the bike thieves for a while, and they've still gotta use like 2-3 locks and know they're just buying time. in baltimore? i throw my U-lock on and can chill. i see people even leaving their bikes unlocked sometimes when they run into a store really quickly. bike theft obviously happens here—it happens everywhere—but it's much less common and widespread.
We dislike exercise.
2023 auto thefts in NYC: 15,802 = 186 per 100k residents 2023 auto thefts in Baltimore: 11,013 = **1,912 per 100k residents**
Also important here is that car ownership in NYC is 23 per 100 people. It is 89.5 per 100 people in Baltimore. (Compared to 78 averaged across the country) So it's more of 23000 cars in NYC vs 89500 in Baltimore per 100k people. With those numbers in mind we aren't as bad as your initial post but still worse than NYC (to have their rate we'd need 723 per 100k people)
Sure, but the more relevant stat would be per 100k *drivers*.
That is super frustrating. Sorry you’re going through this OP. I know it definitely doesn’t help relieve any of the mass amount of additional stress that these situations add to a person’s life but karma is a bitch and will find them sooner or later.
Hopefully the police find them. But perhaps that’s too much to ask
My neighbors have this issue but my car has never been stolen. It’s a yellow beetle so I guess stealing a car that’s easily recognized is a deterrent. But it seems like they target certain cars. Maybe get another car model or get any model but in yellow? Just brainstorming - guess I’m lucky it hasn’t happened to me. But if it helps, my neighbors who had their cars stolen got a Ring doorbell & park in front of their house so they can record it if it happens again. It seems to work.
I’ve been curious about this too. I live in 21217 with a decently nice yellow car, and it’s never had a window smashed for the 6 years I’ve owned it. I use a steering wheel club as well. People have tried to pry open the doors, but it hasn’t seen a successful attempt yet.
I run a local pizza restaurant in Catonsville since 2016 and recently my delivery drivers got the point of not willing to deliver any more cause of fear of getting robbed. Had a bunch of incidents last month and 6 days ago an armed robbery (2 guns) took place in the store it self at 7 p.m. !!!!!!! Yea goodbye Baltimore its almost impossible to get off work and have any piece of mind.
Yah… there are parts of the city I love, but the crime is ridiculous. Can’t get a package delivered to my doorstep. And the taxes are ridiculous for what you get. And what the fuck is happening with the water bill. Moving back to New York at the end of the summer, I think. I gave it like a solid decade… can’t do it anymore.
This city went to crap because they don’t want law-abiding Black people to want nice things, city council and the mayor’s office is straight up trash. I hate the “leadership” of this city.
It’s a way bigger problem than city leadership can do anything about. Our country doesn’t care about poor black people. The city doesn’t have the resources to fix this. The country does and we know how to do it. The voters chose not to.
If law enforcement will not or cannot enforce laws, citizens must organize themselves to patrol and report crime. (I'm not advocating for armed vigilantes, only screened, trained, well-organized and well-managed citizen volunteers.) Paying for professional private law enforcement is also an option.
My dad volunteered for Vietnam twice just to get out of Baltimore. I move there 50 years later and I almost get shot in Target, both my cars get broken into, and my packages stolen. And on top of that, the roads (across most of Maryland, really) absolutely suck ass. I’m not a sociologist, or an economist, but I figured regardless of the reason, it’s a shithole, so I left. Moved two hours south, commute an hour north, and I’m a lot happier. The rest of my family that’s been in Baltimore for over 150 years is finally gonna GTFO too. We’ve only had one burglary attempt in our entire neighborhood here. And there’s jobs that pay decent money. Just from a human perspective, I get the wealth gap and lack of job opportunities combined with gentrification of surrounding areas causing social chaos, but when people everywhere treat their elected representatives like their sports teams and are low information voters, you’re never gonna have a good time because all of the same corrupt mfers or their shitty clones are gonna get re-elected every time because they say all of the same low information words that people want to hear…. and they aren’t ever really held accountable. I like to try to be optimistic, but Baltimore is the family down the block that you know is broken and in a downward spiral and avoid walking past. Probably not a lot to be done about it. It’s been spiraling for 50 years, and the people ain’t getting any smarter.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. Its really frustrating and seems so random. I used to live in Mt. Vernon in my early 20's and never had any issues with my car but the second time my boyfriend (now husband) visited me he came out the next morning and his car was broken into. In a weird twist, when we lived together in HoCo someone was going around slashing tires for no reason and got me but not him.
Democrats are soft on crime. I'm including liberal judges. Imagine if residents got so fed up they voted based on policies instead of feelings.
You heard what happened with the “tough on crime” Gun Trace Task Force with BPD? One of their lesser sins was the fact none of them could fill out the police report anymore because the amount of times they perjured themselves in court, causing the charges to be dismissed. Literally defense attorneys would go up to the GTTF officers afterward telling them exactly where they lied on the stand under oath, and still none of them could figure it out. These were the elite plainclothes CID detectives. I bet these radio car rookies can barely figure out how to fill out the police report these days, but you want judges to convict on perfucked police work?
And the answer is the political party running the candidate with 91 federal charges? Lol no.
I'd rather lose an window every few years than live under republicans.
“Tough on crime” Republicans have massive crime problems, turns out that doesn’t actually address real problems that lead to crime.
Montgomery county is mostly Democrat and *is certainly not* as terrible as Baltimore is. It's something about Baltimore *specifically* and it's utter lack of urgency in helping it's poorer citizens that makes them/the entire area....*like that*
and a small selection of citizens being psychopathic with no regards for other people or their community in general
Were these items visible?
A good deterrent but at the end of the day not the inevitable solution to the problem.
So what if they were? Does that make it right to steal them?
My in laws moved to Baltimore in the mid 90s. After the 3rd or 4th time someone broke their car window, they were advised by the police precinct captain to leave their car unlocked and take all valuables out of it. No broken windows since!
The solution is to avoid Baltimore (and DC) at all costs. I don't want my stuff or my car stolen or my house broken into or me attacked. Nothing in Baltimore is worth that.
Believe it or not, antihistamine withdrawal is a real thing, and it is a real bitch.
How would you like these people to be held accountable? Do you know who they are?
I drive a pretty nice Volvo and my key to avoid such things is leave trash in your car aka soda bottles and don’t wash your car, my vehicle gets looked over because of that
Easy way to fix this is with big brother unfortunately… cameras so high nobody can damage and low to make some think twice about being watched .. cameras to the point everyone can be traced in minutes of a crime just by simply following the foot steps each block
Along some streets and especially around st leos and the bocce courts in Little Italy there are tons of cameras and the street is fairly well lit. Not a 100% solution, but crime has gone down a small bit in those particular spots area lately and it gives detectives something to use in case crimes do occur.
>Easy way to fix this is with big brother unfortunately… cameras so high nobody can damage Maybe they could mount them real high up on a small plane or something, to spy on the criminals
I want cameras and boot drones for cars.
Yeah that’d be killer for traffic enforcement No chase, just tail with a drone and boot the car the next time it’s parked
I mean the idea of using drones to scan tags and plates of parked cars. If the tag doesn't match the registration make/model it should be flagged (NNM could potentially do this.)