The subtle difference between Athens and Baltimore

One of the amazing/interesting aspects of Omar's gig on The Wire is that everyone knows who he is and what he's doing, but no one calls the police. It seems like a reasonable and believable proposition that people dealing dope, etc would be loathe to call in the po-pos. On the other hand, people in Athens essentially use the police as the Better Business Bureau of drug transactions. Just trade two hours use of your car for $20 of crack and now it's been three hours? Call the police. Get the short end of a beat down for ripping someone off on a drug deal? Call the police.

The opposite side of that coin are the people who believe that robbing drug dealers (even when you have no mask, even when they've known you your whole life) is the perfect crime. Instead what it leads to calls like: I just got robbed by Bob Smith. He had a pistol, he stole $700 and a flat screen, and he's driving down Broad Street in a Green honda. Police pull over the green honda on broad, find Bob Smith, the pistol, the money and the tv. And then you have left your public defender with very little to argue.

Anyway, this was all just a preface to this story, which is an even more absurd version of the above tale. If your going to rob a john, you should at least do it the first time.