Thinking Out Loud: Police, Skybox, KAL, and Exelon Building

Baltimore Police Department

As reported in the Baltimore Sun last week, the Baltimore City Police Department have told officers that they may not stop the public from taking photographs or video of police actions such as crime scenes and arrests, as long as the public is not interfering with the police or endangering themselves or others.

I am not sure how the rank and file officers view this policy which has been in effect for sometime already, but I think they should embrace it.  The more people videotaping police actions will help protect police from claims of abuse of powers, it would seem to me. That is, of course, unless police actually do abuse their powers as much as critics contend.  I have my doubts about that though.

KAL

The Baltimore Sun announced on Sunday that they are bringing back their editorial cartoonist KAL (Kevin Kallaugher).  His work will appear in the Sunday Sun beginning next week.  That is good news.  A good editorial cartoonist is often times the best and most concise editorialist in a newspaper.  With a revealing characterization of the target being highlighted, an editorial cartoonist can change the course of events and Heaven knows, Baltimore City needs some courses of events changed.

Skybox

There has been a lot of discussion in the media recently about who has been and who has not been getting Ravens skybox tickets from Mayor Rawlings-Blake.    Apparently, according to the Baltimore Sun, the mayor's staff spends a seemingly good amount of time debating the issue, as internal emails showed.  I personally don't care that the Mayor controls the city's skybox at Ravens Stadium (I will never call that building anything other than that).  I think that controlling the skybox is one of the perks of the job.  But what I would really like to see are the internal emails shooting back and forth in City Hall about real problems that affect city residents like trash, rats, and high water bills.  Now that would make a good story. 

22 Story Building - Are You Kidding Me? 

The word is that Exelon Corp. will be erecting a new state-of-the-art water front headquarters building in the city  that John S. Paterakis Sr. built, i.e. Harbor Point, east of downtown.  Some people are complaining that the new building should go up in the old, traditional downtown.  I don't care where it goes up.  I am just happy that someone is going to build in Baltimore City.  My complaint is that the Exelon plan calls for the structure to be 22 stories.  22 stories!  Are you kidding me?  That hardly even qualifies as a skyscraper.  The city should either tell Exelon to go much higher or build it someplace else.  It would be a shame to waste such prime real estate on such a stunted project.  In this case, bigger is better.