It’s rare that I’m near Druid Hill Park in West Baltimore on a Sunday afternoon, but every now and then, when the fates conspire, I find myself riding along a nearby street at the exact same time as the infamous dirt bikers who’ve made a weekly ritual of streaking down Druid Park Drive toward Liberty Heights. I’d be lying if I said it’s not a breathtaking spectacle: droves of mortality-defying black men and boys tilting their dirt bikes and four-wheelers back far enough to be near-vertical. The engine revving alone is an adrenaline rush by proxy. But every weekend, these stunts come at a great cost to all involved, from the riders, to the onlookers lining the sidewalks, to the police tasked with containing the crowds and stopping the illegal events.
For decades, police have been a mainstay during the dirt bike rides on Sundays. Since the city adheres to a “no-chase” policy, law enforcement has used everything from helicopters to thermal imaging to seek out and deter the dirt bikers riding through the city streets illegally. But riot gear at dirt bike races is new, the affront of it more personal; it’s a point-blank-range barrier that does more to stoke hostilities between police and communities than to stave them. As was the case during the riots, the crowd reportedly pelted police shields with rocks as it dispersed.
Dirt biking in Baltimore City has always been a precarious enterprise. Its popularity dates back to the early 1990s, when the earliest dirt bike desperadoes organized and took to the streets to perform their highly dangerous stunts. Both the history and an explanation of the impetus for dirt biking can be found in Lotfy Nathan’s 2013 documentary, “12 O’Clock Boys,” which follows a 12-year-old boy nicknamed Pug as he desperately tries to join the biker pack, comprised mostly of young men slightly older than him, and averaging in age from 16 to their early 30s. Nathan followed Pug for three summers, as he worked harder and harder toward a dubious goal: joining and keeping pace with the bikers.
Advertisement
Toward the end of the documentary, a retired dirt biker identified as “Steven,” who drives a van used to hide dirt bikes away from police confiscation and to alert riders of locations where police presence is high, sums up the riders’ motivation: “This is what the ghetto produces: hostile environments, anger, stress, depression. Dealin’ with all this s—, on a day-to-day, on a regular basis, you’re going to have a negative f—ing outcome. It’s a recipe. To jump on a dirtbike and leave all that s— behind with first, second, and third gear, all that s— don’t mean nothing? Yeah, we gon’ ride, n—-, we gon’ ride. F— who’s saying we can’t ride.”
Christopher Adams, 36, a lifelong Baltimore resident whom I first met at the West Baltimore church we attended as kids, echoed Steven’s sentiments when we spoke by phone on Tuesday. When he was 16, Adams managed to ride with the 12 O’Clock Boys, who are notoriously difficult to keep up with, twice. “It’s definitely an adrenaline rush, and it’s an addiction. You definitely become addicted to the sounds of a dirt bike, the smell of gas. It’s the sound, you know that distinct sound from blocks away. You become so addicted that after a while, you know, from the sounds of it, what somebody’s riding from or two blocks away, before you even see the dirt bike.”
For black boys growing up in low-income, high-crime communities on the city’s west side, where recreational options are severely limited, the allure of dirt biking is hard to resist. “As a kid,” Adam says, “It was also about fitting in with the crowd, hanging out with the people you grew up with, as well as getting your street cred up.”
Advertisement
He was quick to concede the dangers of riding. When asked why dirt bikers never wear helmets, though their high speeds and near-90-degree-angle wheelies place them at such high risk, he said, “One, you’ve got to buy them. Two, you just don’t. That’s part of living on the edge. You’re at the mercy of life, so if it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. If you’re at full throttle, going 60 or 70 miles an hour and a car pulls out in front of you or you hit a pothole or a tire blows out, it’s your time. ”
In an email, my friend Sherman Stitt, also 36 and an avid long-distance bicyclist, attested to the reckless endangerment involved in Baltimore dirt biking culture. As a participant of Baltimore Bike Party, a monthly meet-up for bicycle enthusiasts, Stitt sees motorcyclists who perpetuate the same unsafe practices as the 12 O’Clock Boys. “The [people] who do it on motorcycles come from the roots of doing it when they were riding dirt bikes as a kid with no regard for the safety of themselves and others,” he wrote.
Injury to spectators is a serious issue. Just this year, a five-year-old boy was hospitalized in a dirt bike hit-and-run accident and a 24-year-old mother was killed in a separate hit-and-run incident.
Advertisement
Last year, Pug, the star of Nathan’s “12 O’Clock Boys” was also injured on a dirt bike. In an interview with WBAL TV News, he and his family claimed his injuries were sustained as the result of a police chase and subsequent tasing: “When I was turning onto Lafayette (Avenue), there was a police car just sitting, and it came out real fast and just bopped me from the front. I flew off the bike. My shoe came off, and then I ran. I seen red dots on the wall, and that’s when I just felt a shock and I just dropped.”
Share this articleShareCoco Brown, Pug’s mother, was also prominently featured in “12 O’Clock Boys.” She told WBAL that “The main reason for making the documentary was to send a message to the public and to police and that finding a park or another area where her son and other dirt bike riders can safely ride needs to be a priority.”
For years, leaders seeking a peaceful resolution to the enmity between dirt bikers and city police have tossed around the idea of creating such a park. Following last Sunday’s riot-gear incident, City Councilman Pete Welch spoke to WBAL about the potential benefits of creating a safer space for riders. “By creating a dirt bike park, you have a venue where youth can go to ride productively, to learn skills and to be certified at various levels to ride at various levels within the dirt bike park,” he told the network. Councilman Welch added that he’d formally propose a dirt bike bill on Monday of next week.
Advertisement
But Adams says that even if that plan were to come to fruition, establishing trust between a community that has long felt antagonized by police would be difficult. Any law enforcement attempts to penalize riders would be met with opposition. “Clearly, if they’re going to have a park, there’s going to be a checkpoint for stolen dirt bikes,” Adams argued. “Maybe they won’t impound you, but they’ll impound the [stolen] bike. The minute the word gets out about that, it won’t solve the problem.”
Stitt agrees that a dirt bike park wouldn’t eradicate biker presence on city streets. “I would like to think a park would be utilized, but I think [bikers] would be skeptical,” he said, comparing the prospect to an episode of “The Wire” titled, “Hamsterdam,” in which police forced drug dealers into a controlled, monitored location where they were free to sell drugs without legal ramification.
Adams also suggested that, in the past, some dirt bikers have tried to find alternate off-street routes, essentially creating “bike parks” of their own, but the development of empty lots and wooded areas has made finding free space difficult. “We used to ride off of Coldspring Lane, near Greenspring Avenue. Now, that land is owned by Loyola University.”
Advertisement
At its heart, dirt biking in Baltimore City is an act of rebellion. For some riders, its illegality is its essence. And the time-honored system bikers have in place for racing, performance, and fleeing the scene is far more trustworthy than any hypothetical policed dirt bike park system might be.
Few seem to think that 12 O’Clock Boys’ presence will ever disappear entirely. They’ve become part of the city’s culture and, despite the dangers they present, they’re also emblematic of a liberty many of their onlookers long for. For a few thrilling seconds, on the Sundays when injuries, arrests and altercations are minimal, an entire community gets to see some of its most disenfranchised members outrunning all their fears and stressors and threats.
Though it would be much better to watch that happen in a safer, regulated environment, it would also be disingenuous. West Baltimore isn’t safe and regulated. Its decades of poverty, drug trade entrenchment, failing schools, police corruption, and high rates of violence and murder invalidate those concepts for residents. If it felt safe, if more of its residents believed they were protected by police and in fair partnership with local government, there’d be no 12 O’Clock Boys to begin with.
Correction: This original post stated that the Baltimore Bike Party is group for bicycle and motorcycle enthusiasts. The group actually does not allow motorized vehicles of any kind. We’ve corrected the text and regret the error.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9JomJysXZu8tr6OsKdoamBmgnB8l2hobGefqsGzrcKipaBlpJ2ybq7ApauipZ%2Bnsm68zqWgnJ1dlrO1sdFmnaudlJm2pnnGq5iyq12ZsqLAx2g%3D