Acknowledgement of a creation myth.
Before the world became the world, it was an egg.
Inside the egg was dark.
The rat nibbled the egg and let the light in.
And the world began.
The adult Norway rat can jump 32 inches high.
Baltimore city trash cans are 34 inches high.
Presentation of a video game.
A satellite map of Baltimore is loaded into the program.
A 3-D terrain is created.
The user assumes the role of a floating point
within the game.
A null object.
Explanation of an experiment.
Scientists place food at the end of a maze.
A glass barrier is placed
so the food can be seen but not reached.
A rat runs the maze, and is disappointed.
The rat sleeps,
and the scientists record its brain wave activity.
The scientists find the same firing patterns
of the neurons activated by
the unreachable food are also activated in its sleep.
The rat is dreaming of reaching the food.
The rat is dreaming of a desirable future.
A baby rat won't open its eyes
until it's two weeks old.
Does the blind rat dream?
Watch what I did.
You hear what I said?
Please call me.
That's what I do.
My name is Edmund, but you ain't gonna get me.
You gonna get the switchboard,
but it's gonna be me,
because this is my neighborhood.
This is my neighborhood, I'm telling you.
It's gonna be a small thing
to lay them down for y'all, what.
It ain't never been a rat problem in Baltimore.
Always been a people problem.
And that ain't gonna change until you educate the people.
This right here is Diatrac.
I think it's one of the favorite poisons for the guys,
because it's a no choice poison.
Most of the time, we kill exactly
what we trying to kill.
We inject the poison right into the hole with them,
and it coats the whole lining of the hole.
So, they gonna bump into it and hit it.
And as they say, "Wow, okay, look at me. I'm dirty now."
Let me groom."
And we get them. They don't have a choice.
No choice, that's what I meant when I said no choice.
No, let me stop. No, um...
I work for the Baltimore city rat roto program.
Basically what we do is...
we come out, we assess...
what people believe to be rat problems.
We project what we can do and possibly
how we can help them.
And then we try to correct the problem.
Basically, basically.
1911, Baltimore city enacts a resolution.
Quote, "An ordinance for preserving peace",
preventing conflict and ill feeling
"between the white and colored races in Baltimore city."
The law prohibits blacks from moving
into majority white neighborhoods,
and whites from moving into majority black neighborhoods.
It is a desperate attempt by the government
to halt the rapid integration of the city.
It is the nation's first legislation of its kind.
Six years later, a Supreme Court
decision rules residential segregation ordinances
unconstitutional, and the legislation is struck down.
Segregation moves to the private sector.
Upscale white neighborhoods maintain racial homogeneity
by forming covenants that require new homeowners
to sign contracts barring the sale of homes
to black or minority homeowners.
A map, deliberately frozen.
Its boundaries strain with the pressures
of the growing city.
Okay, now can you see my hands?
Okay, we'll do like this.
This beer that I got right here.
This beer that I got.
Yeah. This... this... And this is a 25-ounce can,
Natty Daddy. Natty Boh.
Let's put two of them together.
No exaggeration.
Put two of these cans together, right?
Okay. Well, let's stay one and half of these cans.
Okay, that's just a body from the head to the ass.
The tail.
The tail reminds me of, like, an iguana.
Yes, and so slow,
you know, just an old-timer that's been around.
Yeah, got little knicks and shit
where it's been up in the cars.
Where they start the engines up and a fan belt hit them.
The fan hits them and knick them and shit.
Yeah, been around. Soldiers.
That's how... yeah, that's how big I've seen them.
A confidential Rockefeller Foundation report
names a gaping vulnerability
in America's World War II defense effort.
Quote, "There is fear that the enemy"
might resort to germ warfare,
"using rats to spread bubonic plague throughout city centers."
War is declared on the Norway rat.
Traditional rat poison used a compound
derived from the red squill plant.
However, red squill only grew
on the Greek shores of the Mediterranean.
A territory locked off by Axis German control.
Americans were left without a rat poison.
Enter Dr. Curt Richter, a prominent scientist
at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Richter's work primarily focused
on the biological roots of behavior.
Particularly with his favorite test subject,
the rat.
During an experiment on the inheritance properties
of taste response to phenylthiourea,
Richter made a surprising discovery.
The compound was tested on a group of lab rats.
In the morning, they were all dead.
A new candidate for rat poison
had been found.
There are two key factors when considering
a new rat poison.
One, the poison must be attractive to rats.
Two, it must only kill rats.
As large enough doses in humans
merely induced vomiting,
Richter argued that it was safe for widespread use.
Because the proprietary formula remained
a closely guarded secret,
government safety inspections were never conducted.
In 1942, with funding from both the city
and the Rockefeller Foundation,
a field trial was initiated
in the primarily black neighborhood,
surrounding Johns Hopkins Hospital.
An area frequently used for public health studies.
Within days, hundreds of dead rats lined the streets.
These photos, gathered by
the Baltimore Citizens Planning and Housing Commission,
were taken to document the deteriorating conditions
of the city's slum districts.
There were used as evidence
in targeting high-impact areas
for Baltimore's rodent control project,
the first government pest program in the nation.
At its helm, Dr. Curt P. Richter.
One, two, three, four.
♪ Rats
♪ I hate those slimy little fuckers ♪
♪ I want to beat them with a bat ♪
♪ Rats
♪ They're useless ♪
♪ Rats
♪ I want to beat them with a baseball bat ♪
♪ But I don't have one right now ♪
♪ And there's no rats here we gotta wait till dark ♪
♪ And then we go get some rats ♪
♪ And beat them on the fucking head ♪ ♪ Come out at night
♪ Beat them out of the trash cans ♪
♪ Right over their fucking little greasy heads ♪
♪ Rats
♪ I hate them
♪ I want to hit them with a baseball bat ♪
♪ Really bad
♪ I hate those little slimy motherfuckers ♪
Two, three, four.
That was the best I ever heard.
Yeah, baby, shall we do it?
Quote, "If someone were to give me"
the power to create an animal
most useful for all types of studies on problems
concerned with human welfare,
"I could not possibly improve on the Norway rat."
Dr. Curt P. Richter.
Qualifications for an ideal model.
The Norway rat's dietary needs
are very nearly the same as a human.
It is a stable and predictable creature.
Its small size make it perfect for handling
in all types of surgical procedures.
The short life span, typically two to three years
in a laboratory environment,
make it an ideal candidate for studies
concerning growth, development, and aging.
Additionally, the rat's cultural position as a pest
make it less sympathetic of an experimental subject
than other animals, such as dogs, cats, and monkeys.
Hole here, hole over there.
And a hole... See it right in here?
All them holes right here, coming from out of this cement.
That's where the rats coming from.
- I ain't do nothing. - I ain't saying nothing...
Relax. Relax. I'm just tired.
I mean, I can't even bring... I can't even come out here and hang out clothes.
I didn't do it. Calm.
And we... we not the only one...
I'm not the only one who has rats.
They have rats. See the yard?
See the yard?
- The one on the corner has rats. - I love them.
Well, you keep on loving them. They put food on my table.
They put shit on your... You mean a muskrat?
Huh? Oh, you mean killing them?
Yeah. They food on your table.
I love them. But it don't put food on my table
to have rats coming... I got children.
I can't have... I can't come out with these children, you know?
So otherwise than that,
I got to get this shit together.
I mean, they even died off and then ate the portions and shit.
Last year, I kept on putting down...
Putting it with peanut butter.
And they wasn't eating it.
And I said, "You know what?"
I'mma... I will slick the damn rat this time."
So what I did, I will slick to them that time.
Last year, what I did... I did the same thing,
I put the barbeque sauce, mixed it in with the rat poison
and put it right on the hole.
That's what in there now, that why they eating it.
Here's what happened, baby, here's what happened in a nutshell.
What?
You was going with the peanut butter for quite a while.
No, I only went... They figured it out.
Listen to what I'm saying. They figured it out.
They said, "Every time we mess with this peanut butter stuff",
we in trouble."
So, now that you tried something different,
I got it now. That's right, that's right. It don't matter
what you mix with it... That is right.
If it's poison, you must make it attractive.
That's right, and that's what I did. Or else they're not
going to eat it. I put that barbeque sauce on there,
made it attractive, and got them.
Ask them d-Con people. I really did.
D-Con ain't doing shit.
It's been on the market for a thousand years. Call me.
Call me, I'm the d-Con woman.
It been on the market for a billion years.
Them guys can eat that stuff and just keep going.
I'm telling you. Finish having a wonderful day.
I'm gonna try and do that. Please do.
Yep, yep, yep, gonna get rid of them rats.
Got to get rid of them rats. Yes, ma'am.
Got to get rid of them rats.
- The pleasure was all mine. - Thank you.
All right.
Lot of times, we trying to get in,
and get out, anyway we can.
So, now when I put down on my paperwork
that I was here for 25 minutes,
my boss will be telling me, "Really?"
Really. Really.
Sometimes, people slip through the cracks.
I think that's what that was.
And then cracks.
The laboratory changes the rat.
Among traits noted by Dr. Richter
in domesticated versus wild Norway rat populations,
a shrinking of adrenals,
smaller organs, such as the liver,
the heart, and the brain.
Aversion to physical activity,
submissiveness to restraint.
Richter believed his findings
had a wider impact than just the lab.
In a paper titled, "Rats, Man",
and the Welfare State,"
Richter argued that the modern comforts
of living afforded by technological progress
and social welfare programs
had led to a crippling of man's abilities.
War had been declared on the rat once again.
Critics were quick to point out
the eugenic implications of Dr. Richter's work.
A rebuttal letter published in the American Psychologist,
quote, "As I recall",
two other gentlemen named Hitler and Stalin
agreed upon a somewhat similar philosophy.
Richter, like the aforementioned gentlemen,
misses the whole point of civilization.
The merit of science lies in the fact
that where it can not modify
the individual to meet the environment,
it offers hope of modifying
"the environment to meet the individual."
Check this one out, yeah.
All right, so, this is what I use for
rat hunting in the backyard here.
Um, this is, uh, my customized zebrawood handle.
It's a, uh, single shot, .177 caliber pellet rifle.
It does about 800 feet per second.
And, um, it's pretty fun when I'm feeling sporty.
You only get one shot, so... usually if you miss,
they run away and then you have to, you know, reload it.
And they're gone, so.
And I got a "Property of the rat czar" on this one.
And then this is one of the original rifles
that I... I used this as a kid, basically.
Um, used to shoot rabbits for sport in Pennsylvania.
And, um, these are good old Pumpmaster 760s
that you can just buy at Walmart for $22, I think.
And, um, they... they work pretty well.
Um, this one I put a laser sight on.
So, it's, um, wherever that laser is,
is where the pellet goes,
and, um, I can basically do head shots with this one.
They're... they're pretty... pretty great. There's one right...
There's one right now.
We're gonna get something tonight, boys.
This is a version of this, that I just...
Here we go, we're gonna use the blowgun.
Where'd he go?
This is a blowgun.
It shoots six-inch prod-hit tips.
And it'll go right through him. No suffering.
Now, this is, uh, this is what they look like.
They're, uh, basically, uh...
the same thing that you would do with a deer.
We're gonna get him.
Ooh.
If we wait right here, he's gonna pop his head out.
He'll be back.
Here, here.
Okay, well, basically...
basically a live pinkie.
Most... all of mine eat frozen thawed pinkies anyways,
but when I'm at a show, I don't like putting
the frozen thawed in there because it gets hot,
and it goes bad quickly.
So, this is what I feed the snakes when I'm at a show.
And most of the time, I use tweezers.
I go through... I normally get 300
live pinkies and fuzzies a week.
And I then go through another 200 larger mice a week.
The way I look at it, the same creator created them.
What?
Zoom in.
All right, man, so we're going to go to
the local convenience store,
uh, to get some peanut butter, you know, or either some, you know, some raw meat.
Uh, just so they're attracted to smell.
For some odd reason, they love peanut butter.
So, let's see what they got.
All right.
What's going on, buddy? How are you?
You guys have lunch meat?
Lunch meat? MAN ♪2: Yeah, like turkey breast?
We have turkey breast.
Turkey breast? Turkey breast is great.
Uh, peanut butter. Good.
Extra crunchy.
We're going to get a quarter pound
of turkey breast, man.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, I guess turkey has a stronger odor to it,
or, you know, oil-based.
Kind of like chicken.
And, um, peanut butter just gives it that extra...
I guess that pasty taste.
Something that's going to stick their bones, I guess.
All right, good luck again. All right, man.
Thank you. All right, let's go. Take it easy.
It's probably fucking one of them cop shows
or something, man.
So, let's probably ride around the back this way.
Yeah. See if we can find a rat this way.
Look at this... Look at this shit.
Look at this. Trash, mess, heat, warmth.
Ooh, look at this, hell yeah, look at this, look at this, look at this,
this is perfect.
Look at the rats right there.
There's a rat there. There's a rat over there.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Want to see if we can park here?
It's car packed.
Yeah, we're just going to pull right here.
They running all back through there, man.
Look, look, this is perfect.
This is perfect, there's one right here.
Like, literally right here. You see it?
- Shit. - There's one here.
There's a few back there.
Like, there's one round here on the side.
Running across.
Yes, man, let's, uh, let's bait up.
Let's bait up.
All right, so, what we're gonna do...
Right now, I got... I have a double hook.
So, basically, I get two chances.
So, same thing if you was fishing for spot,
perch, bass.
You know, anything of that sort, you know.
Normally, the bigger the bait, the bigger the fish.
So, I'm basically weaving the meat.
Uh, and then, I'm gonna take some of this peanut butter.
Gonna open that thing like that.
And if we could, we're just gonna... we're gonna dip to peanut chunks.
Might dip your finger in it.
Um, we kind of see if we can kick it up.
Oh, that's... that's a slugger. That's a Louisville slugger.
- Get one on the hook and take one out. - So...
So, as soon as we get them, gone.
All right, so basically, at this point now,
we're gonna just cast out.
Kind of on the right side. Uh, one...
Uh, there we go. We're still connected.
And basically, we're gonna sit and wait.
Just got to be patient, you got to be real patient.
Got to kind of, like, keep your cool.
Yes, here they come.
Once again, you gotta keep your line tight.
That's where you're gonna find a rat.
In the places where... most uneducated people are.
The ones who have the least, the least resources.
The people who have no dreams, no aspirations.
Just surviving.
That's basically where you're gonna find them guys.
That's it in a nutshell.
Them guys are sharp, though.
I like them 'cause they got one mission.
Ain't gonna see no rats
educated nowhere or trying to move to Beverly Hills or...
They do what they do, wherever they at.
How did this happen?
So, I gotta go all the way back up.
604, Canning. How did this happen?
How did this happen?
How did this happen? Let me see.
What am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong here?
All right, let's turn this around.
1951, a confidential.
Rockefeller Foundation report lists the weaknesses
of Curt Richter's poisoning program.
"Killing procedures merely make room"
for more rats to grow up.
And actually increase the yield
"of rat flesh per acre, per year."
Quote, "Killing them proved an almost endless, tedious",
high repetitive, and expensive job."
Enter Dr. David E. Davis,
a colleague of Dr. Richter's at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.
If Dr. Richter's work tried to bring nature into the lab,
Davis tried to bring the lab into nature.
Davis' fieldwork meticulously mapped
the distribution of rats in the urban environment,
charting their movements across yards, fences, and alleyways.
Organism and environment were impossible to separate.
All elements in a given system
had to be studied in conversation with itself.
This ecological approach
expanded the focus of rodent control
into the human environment that supported them.
Human factors such as trash pickup,
the prevalence of vacant housing,
access to water, and adequacy of sewage systems
became objects of study
for their effects on rat populations.
By controlling these human factors,
Davis found, rat populations could be curbed
and eventually eliminated or stabilized
at a sustainable level.
A link. Control the environment, control the rats.
Davis' findings shifted policy
and funding from poisoning programs
to bringing city blocks up to newly instated housing codes.
Dr. Davis, a quote,
"The beauty of this ecological method of control"
is that improves the housing and living conditions
of the human population
"in addition to reducing the rat population."
A defunded Dr. Curt Richter
vehemently opposed any ecological approach,
calling Davis' methods purely defensive.
Killing rats, he argued,
required an offensive solution.
I don't know where she is.
In here. Hello?
Yeah.
She's under the sofa or inside the sofa.
Hey! Yeah, she's looking at you.
Hey.
Hey. Come on, gal.
Hey.
Okay, okay, let's go.
Back to the cage.
Okay, so where were we?
Ah, ratproofing the room. So, yeah, this is our playroom.
Where our rats get their free-range time.
Usually I give them at least an hour, hour and a half
a day, as much as I can, as much as time allows.
- You're very generous. - Yes, I'm generous.
Um, I guarded off the entrances
to the... uh, to this living room
with that two boxes, one here and one here
so they cannot escape,
either upstairs or to the garage.
And, uh, then there were a couple of issues
with, uh, electric cords.
Um, this TV stand has to be...
Um, I had to use some Coroplast,
which is a durable
sort of plastic supposed to be impervious to rat's teeth.
Turns out not.
They pick on it bit by bit
and they can chew through it, eventually.
Uh, so, I... I bought some new panels and, uh,
installed double in places.
Um, and, uh, still, I have to watch them
when they are free-ranging.
I have to make sure
they don't jump on it because they can jump very high.
Um, one other thing is the cable here for this lamp.
Um, not much I could do here, just tape it
a little bit higher so it doesn't draw
their attention and... and they don't try to chew on it.
Um, so that's it, every... every other door is locked.
They have... there are no holes in the walls.
I inspected everything.
Um, supposed to be safe for them.
My name is Bruce Goldfarb,
and I'm the executive assistant
to the chief medical examiner
for the state of Maryland in Baltimore city.
This is the room that holds
the nutshell studies of unexplained death.
Which are, uh, miniature dioramas
that are used to train police officers
in crime scene investigation.
They were made the 1930s and 40s
by a rich socialite by the name
of Frances Glessner Lee, who lived in Chicago,
and had a long and abiding interest in forensic medicine.
She was extremely bright, well-read.
Traveled Europe, introduced as a debutante
and, uh, was expected to live the life of a socialite and get married.
And, um, I don't think that was quite her interest.
She had other interests.
She is, you know, the mother of CSI.
Each one of these costs what it costs to build a real house.
And they were built by
authentic construction methods
and they took as long as it took to build a real house.
There's a worn spot in front of the toilet.
And there's a worn spot in front of the door.
And there's schmutz coming up
the wall from the heating vent,
and... and, you know, she... she spent enough time in this bathroom,
or a bathroom like it,
to know that there would be a...
I'm sure Frances never in her life
ever used a toilet like that.
Um, and, uh, you know, it's... she approaches this
with such empathy,
uh, for these people in their lives.
These are people who don't ordinarily have
their lives depicted in art.
'Cause it's not only these death scenes,
but also it's a... it's a snapshot
into these people's lives.
It's a moment in time frozen.
You know, a lot of people, when they look at these,
it's a sort of an innate, automatic thing to solve them.
People want a solution.
They want answers, they want to know what happened.
These are not meant to be solved.
They're not puzzles. They're not who-dun-its.
Some of these, I won't say what number,
are staged and that's part of what
you're supposed to get out of it, is there's
an inconsistency between
the information that you're being told,
that's on the... on the front and what
is visible in the diorama.
Oh, there are solutions.
Her solutions. Frances had them written down.
Her answers, and they're her answers,
and as far as I'm concerned, those are good enough.
But, uh, there could be other answers.
They're literally kept under lock and key
and not even the chief has seen those solutions.
I've seen the folder, I have not seen the papers.
It's a manila folder.
Pretty ordinary. It really is just a manila folder.
- Really? - Because of this.
I had gerbils, I had rats, I had frogs.
I had, what, guinea pigs.
I had cats. I had dogs.
I always wanted... uh, to me, that's how you get close to God.
That's how you get close to God.
Get you a pet.
You pay attention to his works.
I'm telling you, it make you get closer.
You sort of understand.
Who else but a supreme being
could put together something like that?
What was that address I was just at?
Fifteen? Damn, 1518, right?
That's what I'm doing first, just looking for signs.
Uh, any type of activity of them being here.
And, I'm not seeing any of that right now.
You know, a lot of the times doing this, the people say,
"Well, how did you look and see anything?"
"You just walked right past it."
I say, "Miss. I've been doing it for a bit."
And I know what I'm looking for."
Very seldom does it change.
After a while, I guess you get so versed
you really... you pretty much know where everything is at anyway.
Go to a community, the same people
make the same complaints.
You know where the rats are.
Some days be better than others.
Rat Roto. Baltimore city.
Hello?
Hello, there.
When I first started this job,
I think there was 25 of us.
And it was just rolling. We wasn't planned.
We were rolling.
We were trying to make a difference.
And a lot of days, you just feel, like,
"Wow, we could be doing so much more."
I... I mean... I don't think this is
one of them topics that a lot of people
want to talk about.
It's just not.
It's not one of them...
Not everyone want to talk about no rats.
Hush, hush, please.
Everybody wants to make everything
sugar-coated and soft.
And... and not deal with the reality of the things.
No, we don't want to talk about it.
Yeah, have a good one, baby. It was good seeing you again.
I'm not going to make no excuses for it.
Um... it's mean.
Life is mean. It's mean.
It's not designed to be easy. It's what it is.
It's going to throw you a lot of curveballs,
and throw you some sliders every now and then.
And you just have to deal with it.
You know.
You're dealt a hand and you got to play it out.
There ain't no saying, "Hold it, wait, time-out.
I want to change some things first."
And then start again. There ain't none of that.
You just deal with what you have.
You deal with it. Deal with it.
An alternate view option
provides the ability to overlay
real photographs under the three-dimensional models.
An algorithm obscures recognizable facial features.
Sometimes, an inanimate object is mistaken for a face.
The game does not care if it is human.
Only that it matches the accepted pattern
of the human face.
Two men wait for the bus on the corner of 25th Street.
A mother stoops to tie the shoes
of her daughter off Monument Street.
A grandmother in her Sunday's best climbs the stairs
so slowly that she remains on the same step
for all three frames that she is visible.
With the real photographs activated,
the game becomes impossible to continuously navigate.
There are glitches everywhere within the game.
Fractures that reveal more than the program was ever meant to.
Sometimes, hiding in a tree, beneath a car,
or inside of a building,
the solar system bursts into view.
Object and perspective intersect.
The same gaping hole within every object is revealed.
A user tries to push deeper in moments like these,
but the game pushes back.
1933. Following the stock market crash,
the Homeowners Loan Corporation is created.
Among its stated purposes,
the creation of a residential security map
identifying areas of high financial risk
for government-backed loans.
Fourteen mapmakers, all white,
all men, lead up the effort in Baltimore.
Their work is kept secret for decades.
Factors considered for residential security,
quote, "Intensity of the sale and rental demand",
percentage of home ownership, age and type of building,
economic stability of the area,
social status of the population,
racial homogeneity and restrictions
"for protecting homogeneity."
May 1st, 1937. Establishment of a map.
Neighborhoods are arranged into four graded areas.
Grade A, or green. Grade B, or blue.
Grade C, or yellow. Grade D, or red.
Green, quote, "In nearly all instances,"
they are the new, well-planned sections of the city.
They are homogeneous,
in demand as residential locations
"in good times or bad."
Blue, quote,
"They are like a 1935 automobile,"
still good, but not what the people are buying today
"who can afford a new one."
Yellow, quote, "Age, obsolescence,"
and change of style,
expiring restrictions, or lack of them,
infiltration of a lower-grade population,
poor maintenance of homes.
"Generally, these have reached the transition period."
Red, quote, "Detrimental influences"
in a pronounced degree.
"Undesirable population or an infiltration of it."
These primarily black and mixed neighborhoods
gained a new, ominous nickname, redlined.
Based on geography, residents in redlined areas
were denied loans that would have allowed them
to move into more affluent neighborhoods.
Business ventures that might bring revenue
to the neighborhood were considered
too risky by banks to invest in.
Redlined areas, mapped as such, stayed red.
The city continued to integrate.
The market responded, house prices plummeted.
Industry and industry jobs left
and would continue to leave.
A great migration to the suburbs began,
aided by a slew of government loans
and tax incentives for first-time homeowners.
Loans and incentives that were only made available
to the predominately white families,
living in the right color of the map.
Isn't it nice to think that when it rains,
the whole city gets wet?
How are you doing? Good, and you?
Great.
Uh, right now, we're at Scarpetta House.
This is our training facility
for our forensic investigators.
It's basically like a studio apartment.
We have a bedroom, kitchen, living room, bathroom.
And, uh, we use this to, uh, stage using manikins,
stage death scenes to train our investigators.
And occasionally other groups
that come in from the outside.
This is the bedroom. We have, uh, bed, crib.
Um, and we can set up different scenarios depending on
what we're doing.
You know, we can do shootings, stabbings, um...
We have a grill,
we can simulate a carbon monoxide poisoning.
Um, there are prop weapons
and we have prop drugs hidden around, so...
when our investigators come in,
uh, you can check the windows,
you can look through the garbage can.
They can look through the cabinets.
And just as you would in a real scene,
and look for anything that might be...
May or may not be meaningful.
Um, well... we did a, uh, a Jonestown kind of
mass suicide thing a year or so ago.
And we had... we had... I can show you photos,
but we had, um, pretty much wall-to-wall bodies.
Yeah, there are people all over.
In the bedroom.
And they all drank kool-aid. There's the kool-aid cup.
These are actually... these girls
and the ones in the bed,
those are the daughters of people who work here.
Um, there's one of our forensic investigators.
And the red is to simulate
a, um, little avidity, settling from the blood.
And they had to chew Alka-Seltzer
to get the foaming at the mouth
which tastes really nasty, and that's what she's doing.
She's chomping on this Alka-Seltzer.
It does not taste good. So, um, that's what they do.
December 2nd, 1957.
John B. Calhoun, a former research assistant
on Dr. Davis' rodent ecology project,
writes a letter to Mr. Eugene Casey,
of Gaithersburg, Maryland, asking permission to use a barn
on his property for an upcoming experiment.
Quote, "It has been with great anticipation"
that I have followed the remodeling
of your barn near Gaithersburg.
By it, you are making possible certain
much needed scientific studies
"that no one to date has had the opportunity to initiate."
Experiments began the following year
at the newly renovated Casey barn.
The project was funded by
the National Institute of Mental Health.
Their aim, to study the effects of crowding
on the development of social pathology.
Thirty-two rats were placed in the main room of the barn.
Sealed by a 140-square-foot enclosure
divided into four quadrants.
The simulated environment provided unlimited food,
shelter, and protection from predation
for its rat inhabitants.
The only limiting factor was space.
The rat population was observed for a period of 16 months.
After a period of initial growth,
the population stabilized at around 80 individuals.
Soon after, however, it was nearing total collapse.
A class of dominant male rats emerged.
Sealing themselves off with eight to ten females
in high-rise apartments above the city.
Below, subordinate males went berserk,
attacking females, juveniles, and less active males.
Mothers ceased providing adequate shelter
for their young,
often leaving them to die in poorly built nests.
Population growth came to a halt
as asexual, cannibalistic rats
preyed on their abandoned young.
Calhoun called these cumulative effects
the behavioral sink.
The goal, ultimately,
wasn't to learn how to create these effects in man,
but how to better design physical space
so that behavioral sinks in man could be avoided.
In photos, Calhoun gazes out over his universe
like a gnostic god visiting
a creation he has long since left behind.
But he is not there to save the rats,
just to observe.
His only concern is how to do better next time.
Today, the Casey barn has been repurposed
as a community rental space.
Their website advertises potential uses
such as wedding receptions, family reunions,
bar and bat mitzvahs,
birthday parties,
and business meetings.
There is a full-service nursery school
and day care in the basement.
We'll go to one of my favorite alleys.
They're usually there.
Always has many rats.
Ignorant son of a bitch.
Look, he just took it off
and just walked over here and slayed him.
It sucks... it sucks when you can see...
See, you can't see the fish steal your bait.
Okay, when it's in the water.
But you can see a rat take your bait right off the hook.
So, that sucks even worse. You know?
So, you just got to be patient,
you got to be real patient.
Got to kind of, like, keep your cool.
Because here they come.
Once again, you got to keep your line tight.
We see trash everywhere.
The perfect area for...
rats buffet.
I got it, I got it, I got it.
Yes.
You going to walk the fuck home.
That shit going to be all over you.
Yeah, this guy did not struggle at all.
See, that's a head shot. Had no idea what was coming.
Right in the head.
No suffering.
I don't know.
Life is funny. It's funny.
You got to be funny 'cause if you take it too serious,
you'll wind up someplace
where you really don't want to be.
Sometimes, it's sad and sometimes it's funny.
I don't know.
I have no idea what I was supposed
to do most of the time.
Not all the time.
I won't have no regrets about none of that.
None of that.
And I think that's the only thing you can do.
Do rats go to heaven?
I don't believe there's a heaven.
I really don't.
I believe that it's crazy to live a lifetime
and have all that information
and then just cease to exist.
I think the spirit part might...
go somewhere in some type of collective.
But I don't think you just live a lifetime
and have all that information and just expire
and that's the end.
I don't believe that.
As far as a heaven and hell, I...
No, I'm not gonna get spooky with all that.
God this and that.
Now, I'm not gonna do that to myself.
No, I'm not. No.
I don't even believe in really good and bad.
It's just some people who had some stuff happen,
that make them make decisions
contrary to how I believe or how I feel.
And, then, so they act out in ways.
They just do stuff.
It's some more stuff piled up on some more stuff, and...
I'm not going there with myself.
I'm just not, not me.
Hey. LADY: Honestly, I know that guy.
- Thank you. Take care. - Thank you so much. Yeah.
Young lady, please call me.
Just dial the 311. This is my neighborhood.
This is the area I do.
So, every time I come,
I'm going to go above and beyond and try
to cut this myself.
Thank you.
Honest, I'm not just making my mouth say that.
Please call. Please call.
And you gonna be laughing.
You're going to be laughing 'cause they going to be gone.
You can get me to the point where I can throw you
a bushel of flowers...
You're gonna see. LADY: You'll be the one that's laughing.
No, you gonna be so happy 'cause you gonna be able
to enjoy your yard. Watch.
That's all I want. That's all I want. Watch.
But thank you very much. Yes, ma'am.
Just keep doing what you're doing. Yes, ma'am.
We appreciate it.
Yes, ma'am, I got you. My heroes.
I got you.
Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
That's the best part of the job, right there.
When you run into that one person who say,
"Man, thank you." Just thank you.
Ain't a whole lot of conversation.
Thank you. We running out of time.
A map of arrests in Baltimore city during 2015.
And graded for density.
Transparent areas indicate regions
with the highest concentration of arrests.
The same map, layered over the 1937
residential security map of Baltimore city limits.
Red, yellow, and diagonally shaded areas
indicate those neighborhoods
deemed the highest financial risk
by the Home Owner's Loan Corporation
nearly 80 years ago.
A 2015 survey map of vacant homes.
And graded for density.
Transparent areas indicate regions with
the highest concentration of vacant homes.
And the same map,
layered over the 1937 residential security map.
A map of Baltimore neighborhoods below the poverty line,
layered over.
A map of Baltimore neighborhoods
where the unemployment rate is double
or greater than the national average.
Layered over.
A map showing neighborhoods where average
life expectancy is one standard deviation
or more below the average for the entire city.
And layered over.
New maps.
Old maps.
Same maps.
It is July 4th in Baltimore.
And the entire population has gathered on a hillside
to watch the complete and final demolition of the city.
It has been decided to start again.
A press conference was held earlier in the day
to announce the decision.
The news has been received better than expected.
Past indiscretions had been recognized.
Plans are in place not to repeat mistakes.
The mayor has announced her resignation.
Open submissions have begun
for the next American creation myth.
Streets will be redrawn.
Private property will be raffled at every corner store.
An elite rat task force will be created.
There will be trash pickup every day.
Streets will glisten.
The city will be renamed.
New Baltimore, it will be called.
Before the world became the world, it was an egg.
Inside the egg was dark.
The rat nibbled the egg and let the light in.
And the world began.
♪ Buses on strike gonna raise a fare ♪
♪ So they can help pollute the air ♪
♪ But that's what makes the world go 'round ♪
♪ The up and down
♪ Carousel
♪ That's what makes the world go 'round ♪
♪ The up and down
♪ Carousel
♪ Changing pe...
♪ The up and down
♪ Carousel