Mark Hughes, the reporter from The Independent who is here trying to see if Baltimore is indeed like The Wire, is unfortunately finding it easy to find our dysnfunction.

Already, the top prosecutor has told him her office's relationship with police is "schizophrenic," which must get him wondering why the two primary law enforcement agencies can't get along, which in turn must be one reason crime is so high.

The top cops won't talk to him, but he's met a few on Citizen On Patrol walks and Tuesday night he hit the streets with the police union president, who took him to a fatal shooting and other intense calls. Here's a bit from his blog, "Crime: A Tale of Two Cities":

The scene was one which must be familiar to officers, but was new to me. A car riddled with bullet-holes was crashed into another vehicle. Through the open passenger door I could see blood soaking the seat. And on the ground were multiple bullet casings, circled with red chalk and each marked with a yellow number. After listening to detectives exchange theories on what might have happened we left and headed to a project block nearby. There we met two patrolmen who suspected some men in the projects of holding a drug stash. The four police officers split up, two went one side, two the other. Justin and I followed the union guys. Two minutes later, amid the shouts of “five-0”, we heard a scream. The union cops ran in the direction of the shout. Justin and I, for some reason, ran too. When we reached the other side of the projects we learned that the scream was that of a man who was now in handcuffs. After some questioning and a search (no drugs were found) he was released and told to go home.

Later, Mark wrote about how most victims of homicide and most of those suspected of killing them have criminal records, which helps explain that while Baltimore has the country's second-highest murder rate, it's still not terribly dangerous for people engaged in legitimate activities.

It does hearten me that Mark is surprised that so many people seem to be following his work on line and in the newspaper. He always seems surprised when someobody recognizes him, such as when he went out on a walk in South Baltimore's Riverside neighborhhood. And even with the top cops not talking to him, he's met plenty of officers and citizens who have gone out of their way to help him.

Last night, we went on a Citizen On Patrol walk in Southeast Baltimore, in the Patterson Park area. He met a new group of residents striving to keep their neighborhood safe, though it was much quieter than one he did earlier this week in Riverside.

None of the residents or the cop, Officer Eddy Arias (above, chatting with Mark, in a picture taken by The Sun's Gene Sweeney), made any arrests (unlike in Riverside) but he did overhear a call on is radio for a report of shots fired two blocks from where we were at the time, Ellwood and Fairmount.