Visiting with my FIL's new wife several years ago, she was going on and on about how much she hated Baltimore the whole time she was there. "There were muggers everywhere! You couldn't walk down the street without running into muggers!" Seriously, she kept talking about muggers and DH and I were looking at her blankly, having only known one person in all our time here who had been mugged. We finally figured out that this nice rural North Carolina bred woman was using the word "mugger" as code for "black people." Ugh. We knew there was a reason we took an instant disliking to that woman when we met her.

But, FWIW, in spite of what you may have seen in Homicide, if you come to Baltimore you're not likely to be killed or attacked by drug dealers.

Truths: the crabs really are that good and the people really are down to earth and unpretentious.