Mark Viviano gets assaulted

I don't want to embarrass my buddy by retelling the story of his bad experience the other day but it underscores a real issue that's rarely talked about in this town.

Mark is the sports director at WJZ and the host of the show that immediately follows us at 9 AM.  If you never met him he's probably one of the nicest and most professional people in the radio/TV business.  He's also an avid runner. He's run countless marathons all around the country so after he gets off the air very often he'll run about 6 miles as part of his daily routine.

The other day while running at about 1PM he was assaulted (punched in the back of the head) by one of three teenagers.  The kids wanted to fight and words were exchanged but after noticing one of them had his hand in his pocket Mark wisely continued his run.  There are several problems with this other than the obvious that no one should be assaulted in their city.

First of all Mark is about 6'4" and in great shape so not what you'd think of as an easy target for a group of little scum bags.  But they are that brazen.

It was 1PM  !!!!!  You should be able to go anywhere in any city at 1PM

it's not 3 o'clock in the morning

Basically my point is that we don't think this is a problem in this city because it happens so often.  If Mark were not a TV personality this never would have been a news story. We tolerate way too much bad behavior from too many young thugs.

And the only outrage people would voice in a case like this would be if the victim decided to defend himself and broke one of these little bastards in half. Or if the intended victim was an off duty police officer who defended himself by shooting one of the assailants. Then people would be outraged and all the ugly racial politics that are so Baltimore would be front and center.  This relatively minor incident is anything but...I for one am sick of living this way.