As fire, gunshots, and looting spread throughout the city, Maddow seized upon what she thought is the most important part of Baltimore Sun reporter Erica Green’s reporting: that she had seen a few cops throw debris back at the rioters.

“What’s striking about that report, particularly because you saw it firsthand as a reporter, is that you don’t expect police to be throwing bricks,” she said.

“The police have talked about the fact that they are willing to be tactically very aggressive as the situation stays out of control; they’re willing to use pepper pellets, they’re willing to use rubber bullets, we’ve seen them using gas today,” Maddow noted. “But if they’re picking up things that are being thrown at them and throwing things back, that implies to me as the lay observer that the police feel — that the police are a little out of control…”

But Green injected some much needed sanity into the discussion. “I watched the police have things hurled at them for a very long time, and they didn’t do anything… I mean, these kids have no fear. so I was very surprised that things didn’t escalate more quickly.”