Thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand answers in the case of Freddie Gray, the largest rally since the 25-year-old black man died in police custody. After hours of peaceful demonstrations, pockets of protesters smashed police car windows and storefronts.
Saturday’s protests came a day after Baltimore Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said Gray should have received medical attention at the spot where he was arrested before he was put inside a police transport van handcuffed and without a seat belt, a violation of the department’s policy.
Gray died on April 19 after suffering a fatal spinal injury while in custody. His death has intensified a national debate over police treatment of African-Americans.
Photo: Reuters
Authorities have not explained how or when Gray’s spine was injured. Video showed him being dragged into a police van, and police have said he rode in it for about 30 minutes before paramedics were called.
Gray’s death has been compared to those of other unarmed black men who died at the hands of police in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri.
Residents voiced their anger on Saturday at how the department and the city’s officials are handling the investigation into Gray’s death.
Photo: AFP
Protesters threw cans and plastic bottles in the direction of police officers. One protester broke the window of a police cruiser, grabbed a police hat inside and wore it while standing on top of the cruiser with several other protesters.
At least two people were hurt in the mayhem, and at least a dozen were arrested.
In her first public comments since Gray’s death, his twin sister, Fredricka Gray, appealed for calm.
“My family wants to say, ‘can you all please, please stop the violence?’” she said at a news conference with Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. “Freddie Gray would not want this.”
Earlier on Saturday, the crowd paused for a moment of silence in front of Shock Trauma, the hospital where Gray died.
Signs in hand, with slogans such as “Jail Killer Police” and “Unite Here,” demonstrators filled two city blocks and marched to city hall, where the crowd overtook a grassy plaza.
Tanya Peacher, a 36-year-old Baltimore resident, said she had never attended a protest in the city before, but watching a video of Gray’s arrest motivated her.
“I looked at my son,” she said, “and thought, ‘That is my son.’”
At a downtown intersection, a dozen marchers laid down in the street during an impromptu “die-in.”
Both Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts and Mayor Rawlings-Blake, who took office in 2010, are African-American. They came in making promises to inner-city residents and police who spent decades staring each other down in neighborhoods ravaged by crack and heroin.
However, with each death of a black man in custody, their efforts to overcome mistrust have hit hard walls of skepticism and outrage.
Batts says he has fired 50 police employees and reduced officer-involved shootings, and the use-of-force reports police must file dropped from 598 in 2012 to 435 last year.
However, he acknowledged that some cases have “tarnished this badge and the reputation of the department.”
Gray is at least the fifth black man to die after police encounters since Batts took charge.
A Baltimore Sun investigation revealed last year that the city has paid roughly US$5.7 million in brutality settlements since 2011, involving 102 instances of excessive force.
Batts then asked the US Department of Justice to review the department’s policies and procedures. Now the Department of Justice has opened a second probe, by its Civil Rights division, examining Gray’s death.
Baltimore had one of the nation’s busiest markets for heroin and crack cocaine when Martin O’Malley ran for mayor in 1999. The future Maryland governor and Democratic presidential candidate imposed a “zero tolerance” policy during his time as Baltimore mayor that did reduce crime, but it also resulted in thousands of arrests without cause.
In 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reached an US$870,000 settlement with the city that required police to track their arrests. However, by 2012, an independent auditor found Baltimore officers still could not justify 35 percent of their arrests.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese