There is the death of Freddie Gray, and those protesting it as the culmination of the treatment by police of the black community.  There are looters and rioters, using the death and protest as cover to lay waste to their community for their own purposes, mostly gain and destruction.  And there is the death of Freddie Gray again, the use of force by police, the deterioration of trust and respect between law enforcement and the black community.

These fires are all burning at once, and there will be argument over who lit the fires, who is responsible, who is the worst offender.  It's going to accomplish nothing, as the desire to deflect blame and responsibility will be stronger than the desire to put out any of these fires.

For a brief, shining moment, the death of yet another young black man at the hand of the police was sinking in to the subconscious of those people who don't see the problem affecting their lives. But images of rioting and looting will destroy that gain.  They won't see separate problems, but just one big fire.  And of all the causes they find unpalatable, looting will be the least acceptable. The need to believe that the police aren't entirely wrong is strong and deeply embedded.  It's the most difficult to overcome.

Yet, dismissing the gravamen of the protests, of the anger and frustration within a community for years, decades, of being pushed, beaten, treated like dirt, because there are some within the community that make the cops look better, is a terrible mistake.  Condemn the riots, the looting, but not the cause.

And what is the cause?  The police.  The police are the cause. There is simply no way around this fact.  The public cannot be blamed for being the public, and like it or not nice law-abiding white folks, black citizens are entitled to live their lives free of police beatings, violations of their right to enjoy a walk down the street without getting tossed against a wall, and not fear that they will die for no particularly good reason at the hands of a cop who need only proclaim he feared for his life.

Some cops concede the fact that there is no "officer safety" exception to the Constitution, thus obviating the First Rule of Policing.  It's as if the people come first, and if that were so, there would be neither protests nor rioting or looting. Cause and effect matters when it comes to fires like those burning in Baltimore.

At Crime & Federalism, Mike Cernovich makes an important point, that since the police cannot exercise self-control, they require an incentive system to compel them to not kill people for the hell of it.  That doesn't exist because of police unions and qualified immunity.