Harbor Place May 2, 2015 Saturday Afternoon After National Freddie Gray Rally in Baltimore

Harbor Place, May 2, 2015, Saturday afternoon after national Freddie Gray Rally in Baltimore. I left the rally before it went on a peaceful demonstration march north in the city, with Harbor Place being 5 or 6 blocks south of the rally at City Hall. At Harbor Place, I was relieved to see that, though the outside edge of it was still lined with national guard and police, some of the businesses were open and people were there enjoying the gorgeous May day. 

After a good job at photographing the rally, and feeling right about supporting the peaceful changes the other rally participants are also working towards, it was great to see that the previous week's violent riots had not kept everyone else from having a good day in Baltimore Inner Harbor. Which meant that other areas of town were also OK and not too scared or emotionally scarred to go out. 

This video shows you how nice it was that afternoon, as police (most from other jurisdictions) and Maryland National Guard kept the place safe while us civilians there had a nice time in Baltimore City. The cops and guard in their uniforms were having fairly nice times, too, but let me tell you, though you might already know (I know from pulling guard in the army and working security guard jobs), no matter how safe the situation is, the solid potential for trouble coming at you maintains concern, fear, tempering of fear into defensive power and thinking out your potential defensive actions as a steady flow right down the middle of you. Only a fool forgets that being there on guard duty means serious, violent, even deadly, foe may attack, and I saw no fools in uniform there. 

Some people think that nothing bad happening at the Inner Harbor while all those police and National Guard were on duty shows that they were not needed. Nothing bad happened while the Guard & cops were there because they were there. I have spent more of my life in the Greater Baltimore Metropolitan Area than any other place on earth.  Five months ago, from Southeast Baltimore City, I moved in one block from the Harbor Place. Ever since the day Harbor Place opened, I've been going there to shop, to join in on great public events & holiday celebrations and/or to relax on a bench & converse with other visitors. Gotta nice photography portfolio of it. I am fully qualified to know & say that those troops of guard & cops were completely necessary.

I shall still be going over to the harbor a lot. Security will be enhanced, more effort & funding will be going into making all of Baltimore better, and - as you see in the video - people of all kinds still enjoy it and are relaxed and happy there too. 

This video was shot and edited as a historical document, and to show people today what it was like in the Inner Harbor as the heavy week wound down. It is also done to show those who don't know what the place is like what it is like. In particular, the families and friends of the National Guard troops and police support from other jurisdictions, who don't know what it is like, can see where the place of duty was that took the guard & police members away from home for awhile. Also, it was done for the armed Americans stationed there on guard to look back on in years to come. Ever since I was a U.S. Army photographer in 1969-71, I've loved producing photographic memories for armed forces personnel, and everyone.  

[Watch this in HD on Full Screen, if you can.] 

Photography by David Robert Crews

{a.k.a. ursusdave}