Salisbury University



[5 articles on Baltimore Riots & Freddie Gray—count as 1 rdg. for notes & papers]1 year after Freddie Gray, police work to heal city's wounds By JULIET LINDERMAN. 11, 2016 i By: JULIET LINDERMAN (AP)BALTIMORECopyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.39.2904-76.6122BALTIMORE (AP) — A year after the death of Freddie Gray, a small part of his legacy can be seen at a southwest Baltimore recreation center, where the pounding of basketballs and squeak of sneakers echo off the walls as young black men in shorts and sweats face off.Ken Hurst, a white policeman, watches from the side, a bum knee the only thing that keeps him from playing. He visits the game each week, not to make arrests but to make friends. "I need them to realize I'm not out here to lock everyone up," he says. "I'm here to rebuild trust."Seldom in the city's history has that trust been so tenuous: Gray, a 25-year-old black man from West Baltimore, died after his neck was broken April 12 in the back of a police van. Protests erupted and long-simmering tensions between the police and residents exploded into the worst riots and looting in more than four decades. The U.S. Department of Justice announced an investigation into allegations of unlawful arrests and excessive force.In Baltimore and beyond, Gray's name became a rallying cry, representative of black men's mistreatment by police officers, and of the Baltimore department's own failings.Police commissioner Anthony Batts was fired. His deputy — and replacement — Kevin Davis — promised to repair a relationship with the community that was so strained some say it's safer to run from police than take a chance on interacting with them. While some in the community remain skeptical, other say there has been progress.Davis has implemented a mandatory, 40-hour community patrol class that teaches officers in training — and eventually, all officers — how to engage residents. Davis said he has also begun honoring officers each week for demonstrating "guardianship" — for forging strong bonds with residents, rather than making arrests."That's how far we've come this year," he says. "Would that have happened before Freddie Gray? Probably not."We can no longer just go occupy a geography, a poor minority neighborhood, and stop 300 people in the hopes of catching 10 bad guys," Davis said. "We're also looking at who we're hiring ... Are we hiring people with a service mind set, or people who watch too many cops and robbers television shows?"Another initiative, the one that brought Hurst to the rec center, aims to get more officers out of their cars and walking the streets of Baltimore's most crime-ridden neighborhoods as full-time patrol officers.Howard Hood is a 22-year-old black man who was born and raised in the neighborhood Hurst patrols, and he shows up to the rec center every Tuesday night."Not all cops want to see us dead or in jail. We need more officers to come out and feel comfortable being around us," he says.An hour earlier, Hurst, blue-eyed with tanned skin and an easy smile, was walking along a commercial strip in the Irvington neighborhood, dotted with corner stores, liquor stores, cheap restaurants and a massive thrift shop. Spotting a group of young men loitering near a bus shelter, he gently but firmly told them to move along.As he strolled down the block, a car stopped in the middle of the road and a young man popped his head out of the passenger window."Whassup, Hurst?" he shouts, his smiling lips parted to reveal teeth plated with gold veneers.As part of his routine, Hurst walks to a cellphone store to check in on the manager. On the way, 45-year-old Keith Hopkins, who sat in a wheelchair, a hand-rolled cigarette between his fingers, stopped the officer to chat."Hurst don't need a gun or a badge around here," he says. "He's one of the good ones."In 2015, the city experienced the most violent year in its history, and the Southwestern District, Hurst's post, saw 51 killings — the most of any precinct except the Western District, where Gray was arrested."Police officers, a lot of them think that every guy standing on the corner is dealing drugs, which isn't true," Hurst said. "And the community, a lot of them out here think every police officer coming up to them is going to make them sit on the ground and cuss at them and treat them badly."Community mistrust of police in Baltimore dates back decades. Former Gov. Martin O'Malley, mayor from 1999-2006, instituted a "zero tolerance" crime-fighting strategy that advocated "stop and frisk" practices and cracking down on lower-level crimes such as public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. In 2005, more than 100,000 people were arrested — roughly one sixth of the city's population— and a Baltimore grand jury found excessive arrests in poor black neighborhoods.The city paid $870,000 to settle a lawsuit by people who said they were illegally arrested, and O'Malley's successors have moved away from zero-tolerance policing. The police commissioner says those days are over, but the hangover lingers.Dorothy Cunningham, 58, the president of the Irvington Community Association, was instrumental in getting Hurst assigned to her district. Hurst, an eight-year veteran, is beloved in the neighborhood, and has already helped residents feel safer, she says."Maybe the police learned something from the unrest in the spring," Cunningham says.Other officers struggle to blend into the communities they patrol, where residents are still fearful of police and critical of the department.Across town, Jordan Distance, a black officer, walks a commercial strip surrounded by blocks dotted with abandoned buildings and vacant homes. The day before, five people were shot, one fatally, on his beat. The police had yet to identify a suspect."The shooting last night, there's so many vacants and alleys and nobody's going to tell me what he looks like," he says."There's that disconnect between us and the people. I don't know if it's because they're scared or what."For Hurst, policing is only one aspect of the job. He hands out flyers advertising jobs and is helping transform a vacant property into a community center, complete with a computer lab, a police substation and workshop space."There's a guy who said, I'll come and teach them carpentry. Another guy in the neighborhood said he'd come in and help them with their homework," Hurst says."We'll put in a garden and when the vegetables are ripe we'll pick them and pass them out. We're trying," he says, "we're trying our best."A Freddie Gray primer: Who was he, how did he die, why is there so much anger?By Peter Hermann and John Woodrow Cox 28, 2015Who was Freddie Gray?Freddie Gray, who?at this moment is the nation’s most prominent symbol of distrust in police, went by the nickname “Pepper.” Gray, 25,?grew up in the impoverished neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester on Baltimore’s west side.In 2008, a lead-paint lawsuit was filed on behalf of Gray and two of his sisters against the owners of the home in which they?grew up.?Court papers described his difficult upbringing: a disabled mother addicted to heroin who, in a deposition, said she couldn’t read; walls and windowsills containing enough lead to poison the children and leave them incapable of leading functional lives; a young man who was four grade levels behind in reading.Such lawsuits are so common in Gray’s neighborhood that the resulting settlement payments — which Gray lived off — are known as “lead checks.”Close friends of Gray, who was 5-foot-8 and 145 pounds, described him as loyal and warm, humorous and happy. “Every time you saw him, you just smiled, because you knew you were going to have a good day,”? said Angela Gardner, 22, who had dated him off and on over the past two years.But Gray?also had frequent run-ins with the law.Court records show he?was arrested more than a dozen times, and had a handful of convictions, mostly on?charges of selling or possessing heroin or marijuana. His?longest stint behind bars was about two years.How did he die??Gray died of a severe spinal injury on?April 19, one week after being arrested by police following a foot chase in his neighborhood. It wasn’t clear why he ran when he saw the police. The officers said they found a switchblade in his pocket.Video shot by a?civilian bystander shows officers dragging Gray, who appeared limp, after he was?handcuffed. Officials say he was able to climb into the back of a police van.The driver of the van made at least one stop on a 30-minute ride to a police station to put Gray in leg restraints, police officials said. Officials said Gray was angry and talking when he was first put in the van but was not breathing when it arrived at the police station.Baltimore police have acknowledged significant errors in the moments that followed:?Gray was not seat-belted after being placed in a transport van, a violation of department policy;?Gray was not offered medical attention, despite several requests; and officers did not call?for an ambulance when he was arrested, as they should have.Police have said they don’t know whether?Gray was injured during his arrest or while in the van.Six police officers have been suspended while authorities investigate. Those involved in the arrest denied using force.City officials have promised to finish?their investigation by May 1 and will then allow prosecutors to decide whether criminal charges should be filed.The Justice Department is also investigating the incident to determine?whether civil rights violations were committed.Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement that she welcomes the additional scrutiny to help “get answers to the questions so many of us are still asking.”Why is there so much anger?The violent, fiery riots that consumed?Baltimore on Monday began days earlier as peaceful protests of what activists say is a much larger national issue: police?mistreatment of black men.Police-involved deaths over the past year include?Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Eric Garner on Staten Island and Walter Scott in North Charleston, S.C.Those tensions were only heightened in?West Baltimore, where?relations between residents and police have long been strained. On Saturday, a lengthy and largely peaceful march of about 1,000 people ended with flashes of violence outside Camden Yards.“People want justice,” said?Adam Jordan, 27, who leads one of the Baltimore protest groups. “They want the officers to go to jail. But most of all, they want reform — sweeping reform.”As the city spiraled into chaos Monday, protest organizers were quick to draw a distinction between themselves and the violent rioters who set cars ablaze, looted businesses and injured more than a dozen officers.Freddie Gray’s life a study in the sad effects of lead paint on poor blacksBy Terrence McCoy 29, 2015BALTIMORE — The house where Freddie Gray’s life changed forever sits at the end of a long line of abandoned row homes in one of this city’s poorest neighborhoods…[Dunn cut some for space reasons]… “All these kids that grew up in those houses, they all have ADHD,” said Rosalyn Brown, who has lived in Freddie’s neighborhood for decades. “They have mood swings. They have anxiety.” Like her son, she said. She raised in him a house peppered with shards of paint. He must have eaten some, Brown said, wondering whether she, too, should pursue litigation and try to collect her own “lead check.”Freddie Gray’s path toward such litigation [re: lead paint exposure] began months after his birth in August of 1989. He and his twin sister, Fredericka, were born two months prematurely to a mother, Gloria Darden, who said in a deposition she began using heroin when she was 23. He lived in the hospital his first months of life until he gained five pounds.It wasn’t long after that he was given the first of many blood tests, court records show. The test came in May of 1990, when the family was living in a home on Fulton Avenue in West Baltimore. Even at such a young age, his blood contained more than 10 micrograms of lead per decileter of blood — double the level in which the Center for Disease Control urges additional testing. Three months later, his blood had nearly 30 micrograms. And then, in June of 1991 when Gray was 22 months old, his blood carried 37 micrograms.“Jesus,” gasped Dan Levy, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the effects of lead poisoning on youths, when told of Gray’s levels. “The fact that Mr. Gray had these high levels of lead in all likelihood affected his ability to think and to self-regulate, and profoundly affect his cognitive ability to process information.” He added: “And the real tragedy of lead is that the damage it does is irreparable.”… [Dunn cut rest]What you really need to know about Baltimore, from a reporter who’s lived there for over 30 yearsBy Michael A. Fletcher 28, 2015It was only a matter of time before Baltimore exploded.In the more than three decades I have called this city home, Baltimore has been a combustible mix of poverty, crime, and hopelessness, uncomfortably juxtaposed against rich history, friendly people, venerable institutions and pockets of old-money affluence.The two Baltimores have mostly gone unreconciled. The violence that followed Freddie Gray’s funeral Monday, with roaming gangs looting stores and igniting fires, demands that something be done.But what to do?Baltimore is not Ferguson and its primary problems are not racial. The mayor, city council president, police chief, top prosecutor, and many other city leaders are black, as is half of Baltimore’s 3,000-person police force.?The city has many prominent black churches and a line of black civic leadership extending back to Frederick Douglass.Yet, the gaping disparities separating the haves and the have nots in Baltimore are as large as they are anywhere. And, as the boys on the street will tell you, black cops can be hell on them, too.Freddie Gray’s life and death say much about the difficult problems that roil Baltimore. As a child, he was found to have elevated levels of lead in his blood from peeling lead paint in his home, leading to a raft of medical and educational problems, his family charged in a lawsuit. His friends remember him as a smiling, friendly guy who liked nice clothes and deplored violence. His criminal record says he operated on the periphery of the drug game. He did a short stint in prison, and according to news reports, his mother used heroin.None of that is unusual in the West Baltimore community where he grew up — nor are they unusual in many of Baltimore’s impoverished neighborhoods. The federal government has said that Baltimore has the highest concentration of heroin addicts in the nation. Gray's neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester, once home to Thurgood Marshall and Cab Calloway, has more recently distinguished itself as the place that has sent the highest number of people to prison in the state of?Maryland.It does not stop there, despite ambitious city efforts to build new housing and focus social services in Sandtown. More than half of the neighborhood’s households earned less than $25,000 a year, according to a 2011 Baltimore Health Department report, and more than one in five adults were out of work?— double the citywide average. One in five middle school students in the neighborhood missed more than 20 days of school, as did 45 percent of the neighborhood’s high schoolers.Domestic violence was 50 percent higher in Sandtown than the city average. And the neighborhood experienced murder at twice the citywide rate — which is no mean feat in Baltimore.So far this year, the city counts 68 murders, according to a Web site maintained by the Baltimore Sun. That is after 663 murders were recorded over the three previous years. That is a lot of killing, but not nearly what it was in the 1980s and 1990s, when the body count routinely surpassed 300 a year.Most of these problems are confined to the pockmarked neighborhoods of narrow rowhomes and public housing projects on the city’s east and west sides. They exist in the lives of the other Baltimore of renovated waterfront homes, tree-lined streets, ?sparkling waterfront views, rollicking bars and ethnic restaurants mainly through news reports. The two worlds bump up against one another only on occasion. … [Dunn cut some]Still, this leads to a lot of police interaction. When I moved to Baltimore after growing up in New York City, I was surprised at how often I would be forced to squeeze my car over to the side of the road as a police car, lights flashing and siren blaring, roared by. During my 13 years as a reporter at The Baltimore Sun, I heard many people complain that when the police got where they were going, they sometimes exacted their own brand of justice.Baltimore police have faced a series of corruption allegations through the years. They have been accused of planting evidence on suspects, being too quick to resort to deadly force and, long before Gray’s suspicious death, of beating suspects. Like police everywhere, they have been accused of routinely pulling up black youth.? When he was a teenager, my own son was pulled over while driving his old Honda Civic on several occasions. It has gone on for decades.Not long after I moved to Baltimore, my wife’s car was stolen in front of our house, which then was just four or five blocks from North and Pennsylvania avenues, the epicenter of Monday’s disturbance. ?The police came and asked the usual questions before my wife piped up, “What do you guys do to find stolen cars?”One of the cops responded that the cars usually turn up a few days later when the joyriders run out of gas. Then, without irony or, seemingly, mal-intent, he looked at us — a young black couple — and said: “If we see a group of young black guys in a car, we pull them over.” We were speechless. Several days later, we were chagrined when my wife’s car turned up out of gas less than a mile from our home.Now all of the pent up anger and bitterness has boiled over into the kind of rioting Baltimore has not seen since the 1968 uprising that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.… . The pity is that more of us did not reach Gray sooner.As Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D) said: “Did anybody recognize Freddie when he was alive? Did you see him?”The Brutality of Police Culture in BaltimoreConor Friedersdorf 22, 2015 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. The difference is that this time we needn't wait for a DOJ report to tell us so. Harrowing evidence has been presented. Yet America hasn't looked.???Despite actively reading and commenting on police misconduct for many years, I was unaware until yesterday that the Baltimore Sun published a searing 2014 article documenting recent abuses that are national scandals in their own rights.A grandmother's bones were broken. A pregnant woman was violently thrown to the ground. Millions of dollars were paid out to numerous victims of police brutality.And almost none of us noticed!...Let's start with the money.$5.7 million is the amount the city paid to victims of brutality between 2011 and 2014. And as huge as that figure is, the more staggering number in the article is this one: "Over the past four years, more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil-rights violations." What tiny percentage of the unjustly beaten win formal legal judgments?If you're imagining that they were all men in their twenties, think again:Victims include a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson. Those cases detail a frightful human toll. Officers have battered dozens of residents who suffered broken bones — jaws, noses, arms, legs, ankles — head trauma, organ failure, and even death, coming during questionable arrests. Some residents were beaten while handcuffed; others were thrown to the pavement.… [Dunn cut rest for space reasons] ................
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