Freddie Gray

Baltimore Mayor Vetoed Bill Requiring Body Cams For Cops

May 1, 2015 SM Gibson, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Baltimore, Body Cameras, Freddie Gray, police brutality, Police the Police

“We also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.” Those are the words spoken on Saturday by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake that propelled her into the national political cross-hairs. Americans who did not know the woman’s name a week ago have called for her resignation. Some have even gone as far as to say that she should be charged with inciting a riot. Rawlings-Blake promptly issued a response on her Facebook page clarifying her original statement. “I did not instruct police to give space to protesters who were seeking to create violence or destruction of property,” said the Mayor via her social media account. Instead of growing incensed over a few words said by a politician in the midst of a crisis, we need to focus on what caused protesters and looters to fill the streets of Baltimore in the first place.

To Baltimore With Love: Chicago’s Freedom Dreams

May 1, 2015 Kelly Hayes, www.truth-out.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Chicago, Freddie Gray, Racial Justice

As protests continued in Baltimore on Tuesday, hundreds of Chicagoans rallied and marched in solidarity with those who've taken to the streets in the wake of Freddie Gray's death at the hands of Baltimore police. Local organizers passionately defended Baltimore's protestors, who have repeatedly been characterized as "thugs and criminals" by both politicians and media figures. Speakers also drew connections between the death of Freddie Gray and a number of community traumas in their own city, including the death of Rekia Boyd, and the recent acquittal of her killer, Chicago police detective Dante Servin. I was able to speak to two of the event's organizers about their intentions in planning the event, and the larger struggle their groups are currently engaged in. Page May is a prison abolitionist and an organizer with We Charge Genocide.

The Truth Is Not Being Told About Freddie Gray’s Death

May 1, 2015 Nick Wing and Jason Cherkis, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Baltimore, Criminal Justice, Freddie Gray, killed by police, Police abuse

WBAL investigative reporter Jayne Miller had told MSNBC on Wednesday that her own reporting suggested Gray was in no state to behave in the manner described in the Post report. “According to our sources, by the time that prisoner is loaded into that van, Freddie Gray was unresponsive,” Miller said. “Secondly, we have reported [there] is no evidence, medical evidence, that Freddie Gray suffered any injury that indicates that he injured himself.” Medical professionals have also said the catastrophic nature of Gray's trauma suggestsit was not self-inflicted. Thursday's developments about the nature of Gray's injury don't necessarily change any of Miller's reporting. If the only factor in his death was in fact the spinal damage he reportedly suffered while in the back of the police van, the circumstances of that incident remain unclear. In fact, only one thing has become clear since Freddie Gray's death: The police aren't telling the whole story. And what they have chosen to disclose has in most cases left us with further questions, not concrete answers.

BREAKING: Police Were Harassing Students Before Monday’s Outrage

April 29, 2015 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Educate! Baltimore, Freddie Gray, police brutality, Youth

This is the scene where it all began. The site of the first clashes between police and juveniles that escalated into a night of rioting and destruction. It thrust Baltimore onto the national stage in the wake of the killing of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in police custody. The governor of Maryland announced a state of emergency and the mayor imposed a week-long curfew. Little was said in the media about what sparked Monday's outburst. But The Real News has obtained documents from an anonymous source that suggest a pattern of harassment over the past two weeks since the death of Gray. Police officers have been arresting mostly young African-American students after they got let out of schools and after they refused police orders to get on the bus and go home. According to the Baltimore Police arrest reports acquired by THE REAL NEWS, officers arrested teenagers as young as 14- and 15-years-old.

The Brutality Of Police Culture In Baltimore

April 28, 2015 Conor Fiedersdorf, www.theatlantic.com Educate! Baltimore, Freddie Gray, police brutality, Racial Justice

In Baltimore, where 25-year-old Freddie Gray died shortly after being taken into police custody, an investigation may uncover homicidal misconduct by law enforcement, as happened in the North Charleston, South Carolina, killing of Walter Scott. Or the facts may confound the darkest suspicions of protestors, as when the Department of Justice released its report on the killing of Michael Brown. What's crucial to understand, as Baltimore residents take to the streets in long-simmering frustration, is that their general grievances are valid regardless of how this case plays out. For as in Ferguson, where residents suffered through years of misconduct so egregious that most Americans could scarcely conceive of what was going on, the people of Baltimore are policed by an entity that perpetrates stunning abuses.

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