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.
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