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Why Can’t So Many Cancer Patients Get the Surgery They Need?

by JeannaFergusson Posted on September 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into the development of new procedures and treatments for cancer: We now have more than 100 different drugs for the disease, and nearly 300 surgical procedures. However, these resources are not spread equally around the world. While 95 percent of global cancer spending occurs in the developed world, a majority of cancer cases and deaths occur in the low-to-middle-income countries, like India, Brazil, and nations in Eastern Europe.

A new study released today sheds light on this disparity. The report, published by the renowned British health journal The Lancet, found that while 80 percent of cancer cases require surgery, less than a quarter of people worldwide who need it will actually get safe, affordable, and timely procedures. Less than 5 percent of cancer patients in low-income countries will get it. According to the study, 2015 will see 15.2 million new cancer cases worldwide and 8.8 million cancer deaths—65 percent of those deaths will occur in the developing world, while 35 percent will occur in the developed world. (The authors did not list specific rates of surgery access in high-income countries, though they did note that in the developed world, “data from staffing and cancer outcomes suggest that cancer surgical needs in terms of human resources are mostly being met.”)

“In too many countries, we have found that the inverse care law dominates, whereby the availability of good surgical care for cancer varies inversely with the population need for it,” the study’s authors wrote.

In low-to-middle-income countries, even for those who do have surgery, cancer can still be financially devastating. The study found that a third of people who get procedures will face “financial catastrophe” and a quarter will stop their life-saving treatment because they cannot afford it.

How can we improve access to cancer treatment around the world? The report has several suggestions, from increasing basic surgery training, to investing more in cancer care where resources and infrastructure are lacking, to improving awareness about the importance of surgery to treat cancer (in addition to non-surgical treatments like chemotherapy).

But the biggest impediment to creating more equal access to cancer treatment, the study found, is the lack of universal health care. “Equity, shared responsibility, and quality cancer surgical delivery to patients, irrespective of ability to pay, are the goals of global cancer and global cancer surgery,” the study concluded. “This is only achieved via universal health coverage.”

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Why Can’t So Many Cancer Patients Get the Surgery They Need?

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Earth has way more trees than we thought, but not nearly as many as it used to

by LacyHostetler Posted on September 3, 2015

Earth has way more trees than we thought, but not nearly as many as it used to

By on 3 Sep 2015 3:15 pmcommentsShare

As of yesterday, we now know (roughly) how many trees there are on Earth — about 3.04 TRILLION! If that seems like a lot or a little or if you actually have no idea how many trees you thought were on Earth, consider this: Scientists used to think that the number was around 400 BILLION. And if they’re that far off on tree count, imagine how wrong they are about climate change! Kidding, kidding. Relax, everyone.

The previous estimate was so low because it was based solely on satellite images from space. The new and improved estimate combines satellite data with more than 429,775 on-ground measurements, the AP reports. Why would someone suddenly take the time to count how many trees were on Earth, you ask? Funny story:

According to the AP, this all started when a group of kids decided to plant 1 billion trees in order to combat climate change. They asked Thomas Crowther of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies if doing so would actually make a difference, and Crowther was like, “Huh … I don’t know. How many trees are there on Earth, anyway?”

Fast forward two years, and Crowther and his colleagues have published a study in Nature reporting the new estimate (watch the cool video above for more on their research).

That there are so many CO2-capturing trees on this devastatingly polluted space sphere may sound like good news, but things look a little less rosy when you consider what Earth used to look like. Here’s more from the AP:

“These things really dominate our planet,” Crowther said. “They are the most prominent organisms on our planet and there are 3 trillion of them.”

But Earth used to be covered with far more trees. Using computer models, Crowther and colleagues estimated that before human civilization Earth had about 5.6 trillion trees. So the number of trees on Earth has been chopped nearly in half.

Crowther mostly blames people. His study found that 15 billion trees are cut down each year by people, with another 5 billion trees replanted. That’s a net loss of 10 billion trees a year. At that rate, all of Earth’s trees will be gone in about 300 years.

“Humans are diminishing that huge population on such a global scale,” Crowther said.

Nearly 1.4 trillion of Earth’s trees are in tropical and subtropical forests, but that’s also where the rate of forest loss is the highest, the study found.

On the plus side, at least now Crowther can finally go back to those earnest youngsters and say: “No, children — your efforts will not make a difference. Life is full of disappointments that way.” And those almost-activists can go on to become the apathetic teens their hormones so desperately want them to be.

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Lots of trees to hug: Study counts 3 trillion trees on Earth

, The Associated Press.

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Here’s What Sexperts Think About "Female Viagra" and Why You Shouldn’t Call It That

by RosalinSimms Posted on August 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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When news broke on August 18 that the Food and Drug Administration approved Addyi, the pill that is being incorrectly referred to as the “female Viagra,” it might have seemed like an obvious feminist win. Viagra has been around since 1998, but there hasn’t been anything remotely comparable on the market for women. Addyi is supposed to alleviate female hypoactive sexual desire disorder (or lack of sexual desire). But as we’ve reported, women on Addyi experienced an increase of only one sexual event per month during clinical trials.

So what’s really going on with the little pink pill? And what’s the latest science on low libidos? We asked Rachel Hills, author of the The Sex Myth, and Emily Nagoski, sex educator and author of Come As You Are, to weigh in:

What is female sexual dysfunction? Hills points out that when Viagra went on the market, it aimed to treat a very specific disease: erectile dysfunction. Viagra works by increasing blood flow to the penis to get an erection hard enough for sex; it does not cause arousal. Addyi targets the brain, and it does aim to increase arousal by stimulating the brain in a way that’s comparable to antidepressants. Hills says this is where it gets tricky, because “female sexual dysfunction” is not well-defined medically, and she thinks the term is being used too broadly. “It’s more amorphous than erectile dysfunction because the ‘disease’ is basically not wanting to have sex enough,” she says.

Do we need Addyi? According to Nagoski, there are two types of desire: spontaneous desire, which occurs without any physical prompting from a partner, and responsive desire, which comes from being in a sexual situation (think foreplay or dirty talk). Nagoski says it’s pretty normal for women to only experience responsive desire. But, maybe because men’s bodies work a little differently, women are led to believe that something is wrong with them if they don’t crave sex every day. Nagoski, who has worked as a sex educator for almost a decade, often hears women say, “Once my partner and I got started, everything was fine. It’s getting me started that’s the problem.” She thinks a lot of the hype surrounding Addyi is due to a lack of readily available information surrounding female sexuality.

Is this simply a pharmaceutical company trying to tap into a profitable market? A lot of the hype surrounding Addyi stemmed from good marketing, not a scientific breakthrough. “The most generous possible interpretation of the FDA responder analysis is that, of the thousands of women who were on the drug, a few experienced minimal benefit,” says Nagoski. Hills is also suspicious of the motives behind treating female sexual desire with a pill: “The entire question of female sexual dysfunction was motivated by the fact that there’s potentially a lot of money to be made in that.” There is certainly a lot of money at stake—Sprout Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Addyi, announced that Valeant Pharmaceuticals International acquired the pill for $1 billion.

Let’s talk about pleasure. Nagoski says the problem with Addyi is that it’s purpose is to create desire, but the point of desire falls flat if women aren’t experiencing pleasure. Hills and Nagoski believe the conversation about Addyi is too focused on how much sex women are having, regardless of whether the sex is good or not. For this reason, Hills says she doesn’t buy that Addyi is a feminist victory. “It’s certainly not that I think women should not have the right to sexual desire; it’s just that I think everyone has the right to desire as much sex as they want,” Hills says. “I worry about the desire for sex becoming an imperative.” Nagoski adds that framing a lack of desire as a medical problem reinforces the idea that there’s something wrong, which creates additional pressure that can impede libido. A focus on pleasure rather than desire could break that cycle.

So what’s the key to female sexual arousal? Nagoski details an interesting theory about this in Come As You Are. The way she sees it, the brain has what’s called a “dual-control model,” in which there is a sexual “accelerator” and a sexual “brake.” For the most part, men have more sensitive accelerators and women have more sensitive brakes—it’s easier for them to lose sexual arousal. The key is figuring out what’s hitting the brakes. Nagoski says it could be as simple as being distracted by grit on the sheets, or being worried someone will walk in. Or maybe it’s literally cold feet—a study by Dutch scientists found that wearing socks increased a woman’s chance of having an orgasm. Of course, if the sensitivity is trauma-related, Nagoski says seeing a sex therapist might be the best way to go. But for others, try to “take control of the issues you can take control of,” she says.

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Here’s What Sexperts Think About "Female Viagra" and Why You Shouldn’t Call It That

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Lifting the crude oil export ban would be terrible for the climate

by JanisBurrell Posted on August 21, 2015

Lifting the crude oil export ban would be terrible for the climate

By on 21 Aug 2015commentsShare

Since 1975, the U.S. has restricted the export of crude oil in the name of energy security, and somehow that dirty protectionism even managed to make it through the Reagan era. But perhaps no longer. Republicans in Congress are pushing to allow oil companies to export crude to overseas refineries, and they could put the issue to a vote as soon as next month.

Ending the crude oil export ban would represent one of the largest tweaks in U.S. energy policy in decades, and, from an environmental perspective, not a positive one.

On Friday, the Center for American Progress (CAP) released an analysis pleading for congressional consideration of the broader risks at play, especially as they relate to the environment. The authors argue that the policy change would lead to more oil drilling in the U.S., resulting in an increase in annual carbon and methane emissions, the loss of open lands and wildlife habitats, and risks related to production and transportation like increased prevalence of crude oil train derailment and air quality problems for those living near drilling operations. This is to say nothing of the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground if we’re to fight off climate change.

Why export in the first place? Aside from the fact that it means oil companies get a larger (more competitive) refinery market, it’s a function of our crusty pals supply and demand. In 2009, U.S. crude oil production started to grow for the first time in decades, and continues to do so today. Most of that growth comes from “tight oil” — the kind you can get at by fracking — and most of that tight oil comes from North Dakota and Texas:

Energy Information Administration

A growing crude oil sector means there’s an increase in supply, which is sometimes grounds to consider exporting surplus to clean up any inefficiencies in the market. But something else tends to happen when you open up a market: Foreign demand increases. This increase means that domestic production of crude oil will have to bump up accordingly (at a faster rate than it’s already growing) to keep up with foreign buyers. As the authors of the CAP analysis write, this makes for a lot more oil wells:

According to data from IHS CERA’s study that was provided to CAP, oil companies would drill an average of 26,385 new oil wells in the United States every year between 2016 and 2030 if the crude oil export ban is lifted, or approximately 7,600 more wells on average per year than if the ban remains in place.

… If these development patterns continue, IHS CERA’s forecasts of new drilling activity suggest that increased oil exports would alone result in the loss of as much as 2,054 square miles of land between 2016 and 2030, or an area larger than the state of Delaware. This means the United States would lose approximately 137 square miles of land to oil infrastructure per year, or an area larger than Arches National Park in Utah, simply to feed foreign demand for U.S. crude oil.

Writing as someone who has gotten lost in Arches National Park, that’s a lot of land. Aside from the environmental reasons to stick with the status quo, the CAP authors make an economic case, too:

[M]any oil refiners argue that the U.S. refinery sector is capable of absorbing any new supply, making it unnecessary to lift export restrictions to balance the market. The AFL-CIO has expressed concern that lifting the export ban would scuttle plans to invest in and expand U.S. refining infrastructure. The United Steelworkers union has communicated similar concerns to Congress. According to a recent study by the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, allowing more crude oil exports could result in $8.7 billion less investment in U.S. refining capacity over the next 10 years.

Put that all together and the argument for lifting the ban falters. “A hasty decision to outsource U.S. refinery capacity might boost oil company profits, but it would also carry a high environmental price tag and create uncertainty for consumers,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow at CAP and an author of the analysis, in a statement. It’s a price tag we can’t afford.

Source:

The Environmental Impacts of Exporting More American Crude Oil

, Center for American Progress.

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Oceans 15


This surfer is committed to saving sharks — even though he lost his leg to one of themMike Coots lost his leg in a shark attack. Then he joined the group Shark Attack Survivors for Shark Conservation, and started fighting to save SHARKS from US.


This scuba diver wants everyone — black, white, or brown — to feel at home in the oceanKramer Wimberley knows what it’s like to feel unwelcome in the water. As a dive instructor and ocean-lover, he tries to make sure no one else does.


This chef built her reputation on seafood. How’s she feeling about the ocean now?Seattle chef Renee Erickson weighs in on the world’s changing waters, and how they might change her menu.


How do you study an underwater volcano? Build an underwater laboratoryJohn Delaney is taking the internet underwater, and bringing the deep ocean to the public.


Oceans 15We’re tired of talking about oceans like they’re just a big, wet thing somewhere out there. Let’s make it personal.

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Lifting the crude oil export ban would be terrible for the climate

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Clinton Endorses a Proposal to Help Ex-Cons Find Work

by Marguer2605 Posted on August 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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After her two leading rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination became targets of the Black Lives Matter movement, Hillary Clinton came armed with policy arguments when she met with members of the African-American activist group last week. The protesters from Massachusetts had shown up too late to disrupt the Clinton event in New Hampshire, but Clinton’s campaign arranged a short meeting afterward. A video of the session appeared last night on MSNBC and subsequently on YouTube via GOOD Magazine.

Clinton encouraged the activists to present a more coherent policy prescription for helping black people, telling them, “Let’s get an agenda that addresses as much of the problem as we can.” The agenda she laid out included housing programs, job opportunities, and one specific policy that has become a rallying cry among social justice activists: “Ban the Box.”

The argument behind the Ban the Box campaign is simple. Many job applications currently include a small box that potential employees must check if they’ve been convicted of a crime. It’s a tool employers frequently use to weed out applicants. This makes it significantly harder for people with a criminal record to land a job: Studies have shown that men who said they had criminal records were 50 percent less likely to hear back from an employer, and the effect is more pronounced for black men. According to the National Institute of Justice, between 60 and 75 percent of ex-offenders cannot find a job within a year of being released from prison.

Clinton’s Democratic opponents Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley have already both explicitly endorsed banning the box in the position papers they released on criminal and racial justice.

Unlike Sanders and O’Malley, Clinton has yet to put forward a comprehensive plan for criminal justice reform. The Clinton campaign didn’t respond to a request to clarify Clinton’s views on Ban the Box, but in an earlier speech the same day as her meeting with the activists, she touted the idea. “At the end of the day, people can make their own judgment” on whether to hire someone, she told a man in the audience who had been convicted of murder and struggled to find a job after being released. “But you shouldn’t be automatically disqualified.” She went on to explain what banning the box would allow: “You can get through the process and then, before somebody has to make a decision about you, you tell them. So they’re looking at you not as a statistic, but as a person. If you have the skills and the personality and the other qualities that might lead them to give you a job, you wouldn’t be eliminated at the very beginning.”

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Clinton Endorses a Proposal to Help Ex-Cons Find Work

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Louisiana Has Some of the Weakest Gun Laws in the Country

by MariMacDonnell Posted on July 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Thursday night, 59-year-old John Russell Houser of Alabama walked into the Grand Theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, with a handgun and shot into a crowd, killing two and injuring nine more. At a press conference Friday, Democratic state Rep. Terry Landry Sr. called for stricter gun laws in Louisiana, saying, “It’s our job as legislators to close the loopholes in these gun laws.” Indeed, according to the National Rife Association, Louisiana has one of the most open gun policies around—from its unabashedly pro-gun governor to its concealed carry law. A 2014 report by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence rated the state as having “the weakest gun laws in the country.”

Here’s what you need to know about gun law in Louisiana:

Gun owners don’t have to obtain a permit to purchase guns. Buyers don’t have to register their firearms, and they don’t need a license to possess them. State law requires a concealed carry permit for handguns, but there is no permit required to carry rifles or shotguns.
State law only restricts two kinds of people from possessing guns: those 17 and under, or those convicted of certain violent crimes (until a decade has passed since the completion of the sentence, probation, parole, or suspension of a sentence).
The state has enacted “castle doctrine”, meaning deadly force is considered justifiable in a court of law to defend against an intruder in a person’s home. The Louisiana state legislature also passed a “Stand Your Ground” law in 2006, stating that anyone in a place “where he or she has a right,” including public spaces, is not obligated “to retreat” if faced with a threat and “may stand his or her ground and meet force with force.” (Check out our map of how quickly “Stand Your Ground” laws spread across the United States).
Firearms may be stored in locked, privately owned motor vehicles. Louisiana is one of 22 states with similar policies that allow guns to be left in the office parking lot.
Gun owners have the right to carry in restaurants.
According to a 2012 state constitutional amendment, “the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms is fundamental and shall not be infringed” and “any restriction on this right” will be met with maximum skepticism from the courts. The amendment, which was heavily backed by Gov. Jindal, also removed language that would allow the legislature to “prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on a person.” In a written statement, Jindal argued: “We are adopting the strongest, most iron-clad, constitutional protection for law-abiding gun owners. It’s our own Second Amendment, if you will.”

Given these laws, it’s no surprise that nearly half of Louisiana households own a gun. Unfortunately, the state also sees high levels of armed violence: According to a Mother Jones investigation, the state has the country’s highest gun homicide rate—9.4 per 100,000 residents. And that gun violence has cost each Louisiana resident at least $1,333 a year.

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Louisiana Has Some of the Weakest Gun Laws in the Country

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Mexican Piñata Maker Takes Revenge on Donald Trump

by CharlenCoull Posted on June 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Dalton Javier Avalos Ramirez has given people a way to beat up on Donald Trump, and receive candy as a reward.

Ramirez, a craftsman from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, told The Independent that after hearing Trump announce his candidacy for presidency—during which he alleged that Mexican immigrants were rapists bringing drugs and crime across the border—he was inspired to create a Donald Trump piñata. He completed the task in a single day.

Ramirez told The Independent he’s received more than 10 orders since Friday. According to Fox News Latino, the piñatas are priced at 500 pesos apiece, or roughly $33.

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Mexican Piñata Maker Takes Revenge on Donald Trump

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How smart meters are helping California save water

by Arielle8806 Posted on June 16, 2015

How smart meters are helping California save water

By on 15 Jun 2015commentsShare

“The sprinklers were running so hard at a McDonalds in Long Beach, California, recently that water was pooling up and running into the streets,” noted tattletale Wired reported earlier today. It’s not clear what running “so hard” means in the context of sprinklers — perhaps just that they were on for a long time when they didn’t need to be? Regardless, McDonalds: Relax. No one’s going there for the grass.

As #DroughtShaming has made clear, overwatering is a cardinal sin in California these days, which is why McDonalds’ own employees reported the burger pusher to the city of Long Beach (a tip of the visor to you, brave insurgents). But as Wired reports, so-called smart meters that track real time water use could help cities catch irresponsible users in the act without having to rely on third party informants:

After employees reported McDonalds for water usage violations, the Water Department installed a meter at the restaurant that reports water usage over the web every five minutes. Not only did this provide the city with the proof it needed to fine the restaurant, it also provided McDonald’s with data it could use to clean up its act.

McD’s isn’t the only one in Long Beach getting an upgrade. Since April, the city has installed about 225 smart meters at both residential and commercial locations, Rachel Davis, an operations analyst at the Long Beach Water Department, said over the phone. The meters record data every five minutes and send a report of the day’s readings out once every night, Davis said. The hope is that this constant stream of data will help people conserve water and spot leaks better than they could using old analog meters. Here’s more from Wired:

Traditional water meters essentially provide a running tally of how much water a customer has used. Your bill is based on your current total, minus last month’s total. The utility has no idea how much water you actually use on a day-to-day basis, let alone what time of day you use the most water. But to enforce water restrictions, utilities need to know exactly that. The Long Beach Water Department is one of a small but growing number of utilities turning to electronic “smart” meters to solve the problem.

These smart meters seem like a no-brainer for utilities that might otherwise send workers around to check meters manually, but the required infrastructure can make the shift intimidating. Long Beach found a way around that problem:

For its pilot program, Long Beach turned to a smart meter company called T2. The company’s meters are powered by batteries the company claims can last at least ten years, saving utilities from having to run electricity to the meters. They communicate wirelessly over Verizon’s cellular data network, which means utilities don’t have to install network infrastructure. And the company provides a web-based analytics service to both utilities and customers that allows them to visualize their water usage. The City of Long Beach didn’t need to write code, or even buy servers, since the whole thing is hosted on Microsoft’s Azure Cloud.

Still, transitioning to a smart meter system is expensive. The actual meters stay the same, Davis said, but replacing the analog “meter register” on top of the meter to a digital one that can connect to the wireless network costs about 300 dollars.

It’s too early to report any overall changes in water use since installing the meters, Davis said, but anecdotal evidence suggests that they can help people conserve water. One woman, for example, cut her water bill by more than 80 percent after uncovering a massive leak beneath the foundation of her house, Davis said.

Not to rain on Long Beach’s parade (although I’m sure they’d appreciate the water), but California golden child San Francisco is already way ahead of the curve on this one. When San Fran’s water meters were due for an upgrade six years ago, the water department decided to go all in on smart meters. According to Greentech Media, the new system cost about twice as much as the old system, but the city can now collect water use data every few hours, and if an abnormality shows up for more than three days, the city will call and send a postcard to the source, warning of a possible leak (they hope to eventually make this alert system automatic and digital).

So far, only about 6 percent of customers in San Francisco actually use the web portal that allows them to track real-time consumption. “Even so,” Greentech Media reports, “the water agency credits the portal with being one of the tools that helped San Francisco achieve an additional 8 percent water savings last summer, on top of about 20 percent in the past decade.”

According to Wired, severe blackouts in the early 2000s led to the widespread use of smart electric meters throughout California, so maybe this drought will do the same for smart water meters.

That said, a note to all the underpaid and miserable employees of California: If you get a chance to rat out your employers for wasting water, do it now before smart meters ruin everything!

Source:
Smart Meters Snitch on Water Wasters in a Drought


, Wired.

Smart Water Meters Gain Traction in Drought-Ridden California

, Greentech Media.

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How smart meters are helping California save water

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J.K. Rowling Reveals “Elizabeth Warren” Was a Ravenclaw

by FredricAIN Posted on May 11, 2015

Mother Jones

Is Elizabeth Warren actually just an enigmatic adolescent ghost? Maybe! On Monday, Harry Potter author (and greatest living British person) J.K. Rowling dropped a bombshell in response to a question from a Twitter fan:

According Harry Potter Wiki, Moaning Myrtle was a member of Ravenclaw House. Five points for Ravenclaw!

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J.K. Rowling Reveals “Elizabeth Warren” Was a Ravenclaw

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Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn’t Start the Way You Think

by QXEAlishafy Posted on April 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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After Baltimore police and a crowd of teens clashed near the Mondawmin Mall in northwest Baltimore on Monday afternoon, news reports described the violence as a riot triggered by kids who had been itching for a fight all day. But in interviews with Mother Jones and other media outlets, teachers and parents maintain that police actions inflamed a tense-but-stable situation.

The funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody this month, had ended hours earlier at a nearby church. According to the Baltimore Sun, a call to “purge”—a reference to the 2013 dystopian film in which all crime is made legal for one night—circulated on social media among school-aged Baltimoreans that morning. The rumored plan—which was not traced to any specific person or group—was to assemble at the Mondawmin Mall at 3:00 p.m. and proceed down Pennsylvania Avenue toward downtown Baltimore. The Baltimore police department, which was aware of the “purge” call, prepared for the worst. Shortly before noon, the department issued a statement saying it had “received credible information that members of various gangs…have entered into a partnership to ‘take-out’ law enforcement officers.”

When school let out that afternoon, police were in the area equipped with full riot gear. According to eyewitnesses in the Mondawmin neighborhood, the police were stopping busses and forcing riders, including many students who were trying to get home, to disembark. Cops shut down the local subway stop. They also blockaded roads near the Mondawmin Mall and Frederick Douglass High School, which is across the street from the mall, and essentially corralled young people in the area. That is, they did not allow the after-school crowd to disperse.

Meghann Harris, a teacher at a nearby school, described on Facebook what happened:

Police were forcing busses to stop and unload all their passengers. Then, Frederick Douglass High School students, in huge herds, were trying to leave on various busses but couldn’t catch any because they were all shut down. No kids were yet around except about 20, who looked like they were waiting for police to do something. The cops, on the other hand, were in full riot gear, marching toward any small social clique of students…It looked as if there were hundreds of cops.

The kids were “standing around in groups of 3-4,” Harris said in a Facebook message to Mother Jones. “They weren’t doing anything. No rock throwing, nothing…The cops started marching toward groups of kids who were just milling about.”

A teacher at Douglass High School, who asked not to be identified, tells a similar story: “When school was winding down, many students were leaving early with their parents or of their own accord.” Those who didn’t depart early, she says, were stranded. Many of the students still at school at that point, she notes, wanted to get out of the area and avoid any Purge-like violence. Some were requesting rides home from teachers. But by now, it was difficult to leave the neighborhood. “I rode with another teacher home,” this teacher recalls, “and we had to route our travel around the police in riot gear blocking the road… The majority of my students thought what was going to happen was stupid or were frightened at the idea. Very few seemed to want to participate in ‘the purge.'”

A parent who picked up his children from a nearby elementary school, says via Twitter, “The kids stood across from the police and looked like they were asking them ‘why can’t we get on the buses’ but the police were just gazing…Majority of those kids aren’t from around that neighborhood. They NEED those buses and trains in order to get home.” He continued: “If they would’ve let them children go home, yesterday wouldn’t have even turned out like that.”

Meg Gibson, another Baltimore teacher, described a similar scene to Gawker: “The riot police were already at the bus stop on the other side of the mall, turning buses that transport the students away, not allowing students to board. They were waiting for the kids.…Those kids were set up, they were treated like criminals before the first brick was thrown.” With police unloading busses, and with the nearby metro station shut down, there were few ways for students to clear out.

Several eyewitnesses in the area that afternoon say that police seemed to arrive at Mondawmin anticipating mobs and violence—prior to any looting. At 3:01 p.m., the Baltimore Police Department posted on its Facebook page: “There is a group of juveniles in the area of Mondawmin Mall. Expect traffic delays in the area.” But many of the kids, according to eyewitnesses, were stuck there because of police actions.

The Baltimore Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Around 3:30, the police reported that juveniles had begun to throw bottles and bricks. Fifteen minutes later, the police department noted that one of its officers had been injured. After that the violence escalated, and rioters started looting the Mondawmin Mall, and Baltimore was in for a long night of trouble and violence. But as the event is reviewed and investigated, an important question warrants attention: What might have happened had the police not prevented students from leaving the area? Did the department’s own actions increase the chances of conflict?

As Meghann Harris put it, “if I were a Douglas student that just got trapped in the middle of a minefield BY cops without any way to get home and completely in harm’s way, I’d be ready to pop off, too.”

On social media, eyewitnesses chronicled the dramatic police presence before the rioting began:

#LIVE #SATELLITE #MondawminMall …”Cops in Body Armor for H.S. STUDENT”

A photo posted by Antonio Butcher (@magava_da_9) on Apr 27, 2015 at 12:26pm PDT

#praying4Baltimore #mondawminmall

A video posted by BE-Z Clothing Comp (@mrbez4ever) on Apr 27, 2015 at 12:10pm PDT

On Twitter, Baltimore residents vented their frustration with the situation.

More: 

Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn’t Start the Way You Think

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