In Baltimore, victims and suspects are often interchangeable, it just depends on the day.

That brings us to Stephen "J.R." Blackwell Jr., who police says leads a drug gang in the city and whose brothers were abducted by a rival group from their Catonsville home last year. After a police search with little help from the victim's family, the brothers were mysteriously returned through the help of an attorney. No charges were filed, but court documents later revealed a $500,000 ranson was paid.

That set off what police describe as a wave of retaliatory killings that remain unsolved. The Blackwell family was targeted at a cookout on July 26 in which a dozen people were shot, including the elder Blackwell. More shooting occurred that night, bringing the Eastside total to 18, some of which were related to the cookout attack.

It's unclear whether Blackwell was the intended target back in July; it's possible the gunmen were looking for another man who they had tried to kill a week earlier, instead killing Jerrod Reed, a 16-year-old bystander who had nothing to do with the feud.

Now, as police continue to hunt for suspects in one of the worst shootings in the city in recent memory, the cops are paying a lot of attention to Blackwell, who until Monday had a clean criminal record. As The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton reports, a cop approached him Monday night and according to court records, he became "loud and belligerent" and yelled "[Expletive] you all. I'm going to make it very hard on the police around here."

The cop arrested Blackwell, who was quickly released back onto the street on his own recognizance and has a court date scheduled Oct. 9.

This reaction is hardly surprising. Blackwell wasn't very cooperative while recovering from his gunshot wound at Johns Hopkins Hospital, reportedly refusing to tell police detectives who might have shot him.

If he indeed is going to make things difficult for police, it's only going to make it more difficult for all of us, especially the residents of East Baltimore.