Baltimore is a shithole... it is a little better than it used to be after they cleaned up the port area but there are still huge income disparities that make for a volatile city. I went to visit my brother there a few years ago. He was working on a movie (step-up). In the 2 months that he was there, he had 2 cars stolen, one of which was broken into 3 times. Homeless and prostitutes were everywhere, the city was very dirty (if you needed a used hypodermic needle, you just had to look at the edge of the road) and at night you cabbed wherever you went because it was simply too dangerous to walk. I have only been in two places where I have felt less safe: Managua Nicaragua after the 2001 election and Athens Greece during the May 2011 austerity protests.
Dont get me wrong, I feel bad for the citizens there and hopefully the people with enough money to afford to go to a ball game will realize that they have neglected 80% of the city for too long. Police brutality is certainly an issue, but it is the underlying social issues that create the atmosphere where it festers.
/end rant