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"Undue Force," a special Sun report last September found more than 100 people who have won court judgments or settlements totaling about $5.7 million since 2011 related to allegations of false arrests, false imprisonment and excessive force.

"One hidden cost," said the Sun: "The perception that officers are violent can poison the relationship between residents and police."

Indeed. As evidenced by other headlines since similar unrest boiled over in Ferguson, Mo., have shown, Baltimore is hardly alone in its racial tensions related to police conduct.

Gray's funeral gave ironic significance to a ceremony 40 miles to the southeast. Loretta Lynch was being sworn in as the nation's first black and female attorney general. Her first big test as the nation's chief law enforcement officer may well be brewing in Baltimore.

Hours after she was sworn in, the new attorney general decried the violence in Baltimore and said the Justice Department "stands ready to provide any assistance that might be helpful."

That's appropriate. Her predecessor Eric Holder took a lot of heat from conservatives who want the federal government to stay out of local cases of alleged police abuse. But when local officials violate fundamental rights with impunity, nobody wins.

Besides, as we saw in Ferguson, a Justice Department probe will not necessarily result in conclusions that support the suspicions of protesters. Instead of indicting white police officer Darren Wilson in the death of black teen Michael Brown, former Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department found systemic discrimination and abuses by local police, government and courts, which were not unique to Ferguson.

Similarly systemic discrimination may well be at work in Baltimore, despite the better intentions of its black mayor, black police commissioner and heavily black police force. Systemic discrimination, unlike personal bias, shows itself in the results of one's actions and practices, regardless of personal beliefs.

But none of that excuses the thugs and vandals who use peaceful protests as an excuse for violence. As President Barack Obama declared, those who are responsible for the Baltimore violence "need to be treated as criminals."

After all, that's what they are. That's why we need police -- to help solve problems, not create more of them.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.