The killing of another Black male by police left Baltimore burning Monday, April 27, 2015. It is calmer now, with curfews, multiple arrests and a simmering anger replacing the unbridled outrage that followed the funeral of Freddie Gray.
The irony is not lost on social observers that the volatile response to a death in police custody occurred just two days before the 13th anniversary of the 1992 civil unrest ignited by the vicious videotaped police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.
Several thousand people have come out into the streets of Baltimore protesting the killing of 25-year-old Freddie Gray over the past few days. Police arrested Gray April 12, without resistance or incident, and he died from injuries suffered while in custody. His family said that his voice box was crushed, 80 percent of his spine was severed and his neck was snapped. Gray eventually slipped into a coma and died April 19.
At a press conference this week, Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said, “When Mr. Gray was put in that van, he could talk and he was upset. … When he was taken out of that van, he could not talk and he could not breathe.”
Baltimore uprising through the eyes of Instagram
Police Commissioner Anthony Batts stated that his officers did not give the proper medical attention that Gray needed. However, many community residents want to know why he needed medical attention in the first place. A cellphone video recorded by a community resident shows police officers dragging Gray into a police van. In the video, Gray can be heard crying out in pain, and residents stating that his legs looked broken.
“The Civil Rights Division and the FBI have an ongoing, independent criminal civil rights investigation into the tragic death of Mr. Gray,” said the nation’s new attorney general, Loretta Lynch. “We will continue our careful and deliberate examination of the facts in the coming days and weeks. The Department [of Justice]’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services has also been fully engaged in a collaborative review of the Baltimore City Police Department.”
The Rev. Heber Brown, who led a major protest over the weekend into downtown Baltimore and to City Hall said to the protesters, “They shut down water to the residents, but keep water on for the businesses. The businesses in downtown around Camden Yards in Baltimore are the real power brokers. They do not want us here, but we are here now and we want justice.”
The Nation of Islam is among many of the community-based organizations that took to the streets and tried to engage the angry youth. Like the other community leaders, clergy and activists, they created buffers between heavily armed police and riled-up young people and prevented the wrecking of community-owned businesses. Images of the Bloods and Crips proclaiming a truce and a dedication to stand in alliance to build up the community inspired many.
The funeral for Gray, held Monday morning, was followed by a chaotic standoff between Baltimore City school students and a militarized police force. The Baltimore Police Department sent out a press release stating that it had received intelligence from an unnamed source that street organizations, the Bloods and the Crips, had united to kill police officers.
After this information was received, major transportation hubs were closed, leaving schoolchildren without transportation home. This decision created the stage for a frenzied and confused situation. In addition to being tear gassed, many students were shot with paintballs and rubber bullets so they could be identified later.
Images of fires, police, violence and looting were seen around the world. Looting was reported at a drugstore, a shopping mall and a check-cashing store, along with vehicles being set on fire.
“It’s mostly high school kids,” said local resident Dajuan Moffett, who was on the scene. “They are throwing rocks at police officers, setting abandoned houses on fire, cars on fire. It’s like war.”
Monday saw more than 200 people arrested. Reports indicate that 20 cops were injured.
Local leaders say rioting of this magnitude has not been seen in Baltimore since 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Those in the area say Black residents in the city have been plagued for decades with disenfranchisement and poverty.
“It’s extremely heartbreaking for someone born and raised in Baltimore,” said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. “We know how hard people work to be able to have a city we know and love, and watch a group of criminals go through our city with an intent to destroy.” She has implemented a citywide curfew in Baltimore from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for the rest of the week.
Monday, the governor of Maryland declared a state of emergency in the city of Baltimore and sent in 5,000 troops from the National Guard.
As community leaders and clergy had requested of the community, Tuesday saw a calmer night in Baltimore. Only 10 people were arrested Tuesday night, and one police officer was reportedly injured.
An investigation into Gray’s death is ongoing. Observers are asking why the officers involved remain on suspension and have not been charged.
“In the days ahead, I intend to work with leaders throughout Baltimore to ensure that we can protect the security and civil rights of all residents,” said Lynch. “And I will bring the full resources of the Department of Justice to bear in protecting those under threat, investigating wrongdoing, and securing an end to violence.”
“Baltimore’s governmental response to the death of Freddie Gray is a travesty of justice,” said Marquez Claxton, director of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance. “There is no legitimate reason to withhold relevant information about Mr. Gray’s death or to identify possibly culpable police officers. The covert and turtle’s pace ‘investigation’ reeks of a calculated strategy to offset the justifiable national outrage at the death of yet another Black man while in police custody. Their failure to respond and react is even more glaring, considering the relatively quick and decisive actions taken in North Charleston just a few weeks ago.”
Many grassroots activists refuse to be distracted from the civil and economic conditions that have created conditions for such an outburst. They point to the epidemic of police killings of Black people in Baltimore, for example. The American Civil Liberties Union reported last month that 109 Black people have been killed by Maryland cops since 2010.
Filmmaker and documentarian Tyrik Keyz Washington said, “Patrick Henry said, ‘Give me freedom or give me death’ and he was called a patriot, but the youth in Baltimore suffering from insufficient education, high rates of unemployment, dilapidated housing and health care are called thugs. The media deliberately fails to address the root of the problem that plagues the Black and Brown communities across this country, which empowers the same people to resist this greedy, oppressive, capitalistic, overly police-state society. Some call it riots, but I call it an uprising.”
“The police are the real ‘thugs’ in Baltimore,” said Assemblyman Charles Barron. “They have been terrorizing Black people in Baltimore for decades. The city of Baltimore paid out over $5.7 million to over 100 Black people for unlawful arrests and police brutality. The arrest and brutality wasn’t just on Black male youths, it was also our elderly fathers, mothers and grandparents. The stories of police terror in Baltimore are horrific.”
Barron quoted Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1968 statement: “It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots … without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention … a riot is the language of the unheard.”
Speaking Tuesday, President Barack Obama condemned the violent civil unrest in Baltimore but recognized the need for change in the nation when it comes to police and their treatment of Black citizens.
“Since Ferguson, and the task force that we put together, we have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals—primarily African-American, often poor—in ways that have raised troubling questions,” Obama said. “And it comes up, it seems like, once a week now, or once every couple of weeks. And so I think it’s pretty understandable why the leaders of civil rights organizations, but more importantly, moms and dads across the country, might start saying this is a crisis.”
Barron decried the egregious social conditions in Baltimore for creating dry-tinder situations. “Government neglect and capital flight has left Baltimore with double-digit unemployment and an extremely high poverty rate,” said Barron. “These are the same kinds of conditions that exist in Black and Brown communities across this nation, including New York state. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. There is no amount of policing or National Guard deployment that will be able to stop people from rising up and rebelling against police terrorism, government neglect and economic oppression. The people are fed up! Enough is enough!”
Community organizers are planning a national rally in Baltimore Saturday that expects to bring out thousands. Another demonstration is being planned by the Rev. Jamal H. Bryant of the Empowerment Temple church for Sunday. The Rev. Al Sharpton is in Maryland to meet with the mayor of Baltimore, the city’s National Action Network chapter and local clergy. He recently announced a two-day march from Baltimore to Washington in May.