Not all charming in Charm City

I just woke up from a nap to find a text from a friend that said "what are you doing tonight? do you want to go out? Maybe in Canton to avoid the serial rapist?" Waking up from a very deep sleep nap to seeing that on my cell phone was a bit confusing. I called her back and said that yes, we should meet up at some point tonight... oh, and what was that about the rapist?

Yeah, so apparently there have been six rapes in the past month in my neighborhood of Mt. Vernon.... on my street... four blocks from where I live. When I first thought about moving to Baltimore, I started watching The Wire and talking about how funny it was that I was moving to Baltimore, where just like on The Wire (!) all this crime went down. I felt so bad-ass. Now, I'm genuinely scared. Until now, I have gone about my business feeling confident that all the crime took place over there... in Wire territory. But apparently not. It takes place over there and a few blocks from my apartment. (And in the locked parking garage across the street where I park and where in the past few weeks two cars have been broken into, necessitating two security guards there at night. Awesome.)

The rapist has been breaking into women's apartments through fire escapes in the middle of the night. I happen to live in an incredibly safe building with a 24 hour doorman, but still. The rapist hasn't been caught, the Baltimore Police and the media have only now come out with the news. It's all quite unsettling.

Read all about it here and here.