Are they lying? The mayor is/was in trouble with some financial stuff...the school district is near bankruptcy all the time...there are large slums, not Detroit, but not good. I don't know what the murder numbers are.
I would say it's a group of average Amerikans, some with an accent that is low-grade trashy sounding. There's a bit of an identity crisis in Baltimore as it still doesn't know if it is "North" or "South", a dilemma they struggle with going back to the Civil War.
It isn't just the city...if you go to Dundalk, people from Cheektowaga would be like...