Mom beats son for participating in Baltimore riots

princessleah

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 1:42 pm

Everyone needs to do some reading.

1) This is no isolated incident. Between 2011 and 2014, Baltimore paid out $5.7 million dollars to settle police brutality claims. Why didn't you hear about it? Because one of the conditions of accepting the money, is that the victim is NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THE INCIDENT. The police officers are then back on the beat. I really recommend reading this entire article, it is very enlightening. http://www.theatlantic.com/pol.....1158/

2) Freddie Gray was injured and died while he was ALREADY IN POLICE CUSTODY. So for anyone saying he was causing trouble and resisting arrest, he was handcuffed in the back of a police van when his injuries occurred. As another poster mentioned, the Baltimore police have a history of handcuffing perps and not seat belting them into the police van. Then they do a "rough ride" in which they jerk the van around, the perp falls off the seat and is not able to brace him/herself because they're in handcuffs. One man became a quadriplegic after this and was awarded a settlement.

3) All this nonsense gobbledygook about black people being drug dealers and living in crime and having babies as teens feels like regurgitation from the 1980's. Actually, teenage pregnancy is lower than it was 20 years ago, and crime is dropping all over the United States. For people who live in low SES areas, they are affected much worse than others by the economic collapse, they are the first to get fired, they don't have access to health care, etc. It is hard to pull yourself out of poverty when your local public school is underfunded, there are 40 kids in a class, and nobody notices whether you know how to read or not.

4) Talking about black-on-black crime is nonsense too. First of all, as Marina points out, there is a huge difference between citizen-on-citizen crime and government-on-citizen crime. It is the job of the police to uphold and enforce the law. Everyone who is arrested is innocent until proven guilty. The police do not have the authority to shoot or use deadly force on someone unless that person is an imminent threat to another.
Second of all, most murders in the U.S. are perpetrated by one person to another of the same race. Meaning, White-on-White crime is higher than White-on-Black crime, and vice versa. So why aren't we focusing on white-on-white crime? The scourge of modern times!

↑ 33055 ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 1:51 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

mazal555, I am so very sorry that you had such a horrific, completely senseless experience. There is NO excuse for it.

Please believe me that if there were to be a PEACEFUL protest, I would stand side by side with you holding a sign, writing to my representatives, and helping you any way I could.

I would NOT, however, help you rob a liquor store, set cars and homes on fire, or assault reporters.

Unfortunately the social unrest gets things to change quicker. I read an article today about the future economic effects of the riot on Baltimore and impact on the economy. This gets the leaders attention. The economic powers will now partner with the oppressed blacks because this is in their self interest.

Historically this is how we made progress on civil rights. The northerners formed a coalition with the southerners in wanting slaves to be free because they didn't want the competition of cheap labor.

I am not advocating murdering cops and committing criminal action, but shutting down a city is effective to get your points across. If a riot occurs every time a black man is murdered by cops then there will be less murders because it is costly to the economy.

The letters saying police brutality is not nice is not effective. Lawsuits are not effective. They are a cost of doing business and the police are indemnified. Trying to shame cops is not effective. Threatening the safety and the pocketbook is effective.

MLB is not going to be happy losing the revenue and they are going to demand procedure change and they will be more effective than individual citizens protesting peacefully.

PinkFridge ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 1:56 pm

Forgive me for commenting without having read a few pages but here are my thoughts:
- Yeah, it sounds like the Balto police have a lot of cleaning up and PR to do. My heart goes out to the Gray family and people who suffered police abuse.
- But why is rioting - destroying property in their community! - deemed legitimate or understandable? I remember saying this re Ferguson: I will be haunted by Michael Brown's mother's plaintive cry that her son was the first to finish high school and have plans. Leave aside whether he stole earlier, if the police did or didn't act appropriately: where were the black zillionaires speaking up and saying, I'm going to start scholarships in Michael Brown's memory, so our kids can end up in good places. I'm going to start a foundation that others can franchise and I'll give seed money to communities for community centers and enrichment and good things. Where were they? It's tragic that this is happening in the community. The change will have to come from within, but unless there are good guy pod people out there ready to take over the brains of the Al Sharptons, nothing's gonna happen. Or will it? We can - and should - pray for the healing in the community, and that they have the means and strength to build, infrastructures and people.

↑ Scrabble123 ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 1:59 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

HUH? There are many youth groups and scholarships geared towards inner city, poverty stricken kids.

Hatemywig

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 2:07 pm

Disclaimer: I did not write the piece below, it's going around FB:

We are soon to see the great race relations prince Reverend Al Sharpton stand up in Baltimore and make himself relevant and heard. As a child of 10 years old I remember the infamous Crown Heights anti-Semitic Pogrom which was incited and fueled in a large part Sharpton and led to the murders of a Chasidic Jew Yankel Rosenbaum and a bearded Italian Anthony Graziosi who was mistaken for a Chasidic Jew, both by rioting mobs. Jews were beaten in the street, stores looted and burned and Synagogues attacked. All of us from the Chabad community remember how Sharpton was in the thick of the action, not calling for peace, restraint or level headiness. In the words of the great Reverend: “The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident. ... It's an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. ... Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid. ... All we want to say is what Yoshke said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin' and grinnin'. Pay for your deeds." When Sharpton was questioned about the ongoing violence he said “We must not reprimand our children for outrage, when it is the outrage that was put in them by an oppressive system." I want you all to remember this as the "hero" is greeted in Baltimore today. Shame on a society who chooses to forget.

Fox ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 2:09 pm

There are so many problems in society that are contributing to the perfect storm of police malfeasance that sometimes it's hard to tease out all the issues. Poor urban communities; inadequate care for the mentally ill; lack of support within law enforcement culture -- all of these problems make it hard to find good cops and even harder for good cops to *stay* good.

The fictional "Andy Griffith" wasn't a good guy just because that was his nature (or because he was a fictional character, lol!). He was able to retain his humanity precisely because Mayberry didn't ruin him by exposing him to too much horror.

Even small-town cops today regularly see the most horrible elements of human behavior -- things that the rest of us don't want to face. Naturally, such exposure affects them, and over time, they often begin to view everyone as a criminal scumbag.

So, yes, police culture needs to change. However, I don't think the answer is better training or finding ways to select better cops. Rather, people involved in law enforcement need to have regular interaction in their jobs with normal, law-abiding people. They need to regularly experience the fact that most people are not engaged in criminal or anti-social behavior.

Individual officers and police departments also need to change their responses when tragedies occur. This is similar to the conundrum of medical malpractice lawsuits. When a mistake occurs in the operating room, grieving relatives want an apology from the surgeon. The surgeon, however, is prevented from apologizing because of potential liability. The relatives, feeling the surgeon doesn't care, are then *more* likely to file a malpractice lawsuit.

Although this paradigm has been eased somewhat in the medical world, it also needs to be eased in law enforcement. There *will* be tragedies in which excessive force is used inappropriately, but when police express a cavalier attitude or attempt to shift blame, it makes things so much worse.

And, needless to say, abusive police need to leave. Read Malcolm Gladwell on the topic of statistical power distribution in police brutality: the same officers tend to cause a disporportionate share of the problems, even if they're not involved in high-profile cases.

Anyone who sees this issue in extreme terms should Google "activist undergoes police training" to read accounts of community leaders, including New Black Panthers leader Quanell X, who have accepted the invitation of police departments to undergo "use of force training" exercises.

Certainly none of these activists is defending police brutality! But all of them state that making the right choice in the space of a few seconds is much, much harder than they realized.

ora_43 ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 2:35 pm

shoshanim999 wrote:

Does anyone have any suggestions or opinions as to why the black community is in such disarray? Why there are so many babies born to teenage girls, why the high school graduation rate is so low, why poverty is rampant, why crime is out of control? I don't think anybody would argue that had there been zero incidents of bad cops killing unarmed black men the past 5 years that the community as a whole wouldn't be in the despair that its in. Certainly the cops have nothing to do with teenage pregnancy or teenagers dropping out of school and becoming drug dealers. With that being said, what is it that's keeping them down more so than other communities????

First off, like previous posters said, you're thinking of specific impoverished communities.

Secondly - if there hadn't been systematic racism in the justice system over the past century, the communities you're thinking of would probably be in much better shape. Poverty and lack of opportunities is a huge problem. And poverty is made way worse when there are a large number of people going to jail - men (and women) lose years of income, women (and men) are made single parents, which means kids get less time and resources, on top of the emotional trauma of separation from a parent. And of course prison time makes it way harder to get a good job in the future.

Statistically speaking almost 1 in 3 black men in America will spend time in jail at some point. I don't know how exactly that breaks down but I'd guess it means a rate of 50% or higher in some of the most troubled communities.

So basically, this issue is actually really relevant to society as a whole. Police violence specifically seems like just a small piece of the puzzle, but the tendency to view black men as violent criminals, and to punish them more often and more harshly, is probably a very big part of the puzzle.

↑ MagentaYenta ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 2:40 pm

First person coverage of Baltimore has been pretty much lacking in mainstream media except for a couple of edited sound bites. This account is from Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/pol.....purge

"After Baltimore police and a crowd of teens clashed near the Mondawmin Mall in northwest Baltimore on Monday afternoon, news reports described the violence as a riot triggered by kids who had been itching for a fight all day. But in interviews with Mother Jones and other media outlets, teachers and parents maintain that police actions inflamed a tense-but-stable situation.

The funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody this month, had ended hours earlier at a nearby church. According to the Baltimore Sun, a call to "purge"—a reference to the 2013 dystopian film in which all crime is made legal for one night—circulated on social media among school-aged Baltimoreans that morning. The rumored plan—which was not traced to any specific person or group—was to assemble at the Mondawmin Mall at 3 p.m. and proceed down Pennsylvania Avenue toward downtown Baltimore. The Baltimore Police Department, which was aware of the "purge" call, prepared for the worst. Shortly before noon, the department issued a statement saying it had "received credible information that members of various gangs…have entered into a partnership to 'take-out' law enforcement officers."

When school let out that afternoon, police were in the area equipped with full riot gear. According to eyewitnesses in the Mondawmin neighborhood, the police were stopping busses and forcing riders, including many students who were trying to get home, to disembark. Cops shut down the local subway stop. They also blockaded roads near the Mondawmin Mall and Frederick Douglass High School, which is across the street from the mall, and essentially corralled young people in the area. That is, they did not allow the after-school crowd to disperse.

Meghann Harris, a teacher at a nearby school, described on Facebook what happened:

Police were forcing busses to stop and unload all their passengers. Then, [Frederick Douglass High School] students, in huge herds, were trying to leave on various busses but couldn't catch any because they were all shut down. No kids were yet around except about 20, who looked like they were waiting for police to do something. The cops, on the other hand, were in full riot gear, marching toward any small social clique of students…It looked as if there were hundreds of cops.

The kids were "standing around in groups of 3-4," Harris said in a Facebook message to Mother Jones. "They weren't doing anything. No rock throwing, nothing…The cops started marching toward groups of kids who were just milling about."

A teacher at Douglass High School, who asked not to be identified, tells a similar story: "When school was winding down, many students were leaving early with their parents or of their own accord." Those who didn't depart early, she says, were stranded. Many of the students still at school at that point, she notes, wanted to get out of the area and avoid any Purge-like violence. Some were requesting rides home from teachers. But by now, it was difficult to leave the neighborhood. "I rode with another teacher home," this teacher recalls, "and we had to route our travel around the police in riot gear blocking the road…The majority of my students thought what was going to happen was stupid or were frightened at the idea. Very few seemed to want to participate in 'the purge.'"

A parent who picked up his children from a nearby elementary school, says via Twitter, "The kids stood across from the police and looked like they were asking them 'why can't we get on the buses' but the police were just gazing…Majority of those kids aren't from around that neighborhood. They NEED those buses and trains in order to get home." He continued: "If they would've let them children go home, yesterday wouldn't have even turned out like that."

Meg Gibson, another Baltimore teacher, described a similar scene to Gawker: "The riot police were already at the bus stop on the other side of the mall, turning buses that transport the students away, not allowing students to board. They were waiting for the kids…Those kids were set up, they were treated like criminals before the first brick was thrown." With police unloading busses, and with the nearby metro station shut down, there were few ways for students to clear out.

Several eyewitnesses in the area that afternoon say that police seemed to arrive at Mondawmin anticipating mobs and violence—prior to any looting. At 3:01 p.m., the Baltimore Police Department posted on its Facebook page: "There is a group of juveniles in the area of Mondawmin Mall. Expect traffic delays in the area." But many of the kids, according to eyewitnesses, were stuck there because of police actions.

The Baltimore Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Around 3:30, the police reported that juveniles had begun to throw bottles and bricks. Fifteen minutes later, the police department noted that one of its officers had been injured. After that the violence escalated, and rioters started looting the Mondawmin Mall, and Baltimore was in for a long night of trouble and violence. But as the event is reviewed and investigated, an important question warrants attention: What might have happened had the police not prevented students from leaving the area? Did the department's own actions increase the chances of conflict?

As Meghann Harris put it, "if I were a Douglas student that just got trapped in the middle of a minefield BY cops without any way to get home and completely in harm's way, I'd be ready to pop off, too."

On social media, eyewitnesses chronicled the dramatic police presence before the rioting began: ..."

↑ FranticFrummie ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 2:47 pm

Squishy wrote:

Snip ~ but shutting down a city is effective to get your points across.

Look up the protest tactics of ACT-UP in the 80's and 90's. We were very committed to non violent protest, and we succeeded in shutting down all kinds of places. Unfortunately we were occasionally on the receiving end of police violence, but we never, EVER fought back. We videotaped everything, and fought back through the proper channels.

I was involved in planning the Actions Committee in NYC, as well as being the chair of the Media Relations Committee. I personally barged into Malcom Forbes's office, and had a sit down meeting with him about an article in his magazine that was very derogatory towards people with AIDS. (Malcom was a mentch, and printed a retraction.)

We shut down the NY Times and the Post more times than I can even remember, as well as the CDC, the first annual AIDS conference in Montreal, NY city hall, and the capitol building in Albany. I got arrested in that one, and spent a night in jail. Good times (not).

I almost got arrested in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, but the police decided they didn't want to waste the man hours and paperwork, so they just let us lie there in the street until everyone got bored and decided that the point had been made. Same thing happened at Thompkins Square Park, when we rallied for the homeless in solidarity.

I also helped out at needle exchanges (very illegal to do in NY!), passed out condoms and educational booklets, and registered people to vote.

We managed to completely change the face of health care for people with AIDS, the most untouchable of untouchables, and all without looting a single store or burning any cars.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 2:51 pm

dancingqueen wrote:

I am seeing that many blacks feel that they are not treated fairly by the police. And yet, in all of these stories the victim was resisting arrest or even being aggressive. I do NOT think that means that they deserved to die! But why is the leadership from that community and the government not talking about how this is an issue? I was always raised to listen to police since they have authority.

I also wondered about that after the Michael Brown shooting. I felt like - couldn't we get a case that's a bit less murky? It's hard to rally around a case where I can imagine a police officer legitimately feeling threatened.

But now I think I get it. There aren't cases like that because the whole issue isn't deliberate murder, it's deliberate carelessness. The concern isn't that police officers deliberately murder random black people chv"s. It's that there's this lower-level racism, often not on a conscious level, that's leading people to be killed in cases where they should just be arrested.

So you won't see a perfect victim because this isn't an issue about how police treat perfectly innocent people; it's about how black people are being killed for being less than perfectly innocent.

↑ FranticFrummie ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 3:02 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

Around 3:30, the police reported that juveniles had begun to throw bottles and bricks. Fifteen minutes later, the police department noted that one of its officers had been injured. After that the violence escalated, and rioters started looting the Mondawmin Mall, and Baltimore was in for a long night of trouble and violence. But as the event is reviewed and investigated, an important question warrants attention: What might have happened had the police not prevented students from leaving the area? Did the department's own actions increase the chances of conflict?

As Meghann Harris put it, "if I were a Douglas student that just got trapped in the middle of a minefield BY cops without any way to get home and completely in harm's way, I'd be ready to pop off, too."

On social media, eyewitnesses chronicled the dramatic police presence before the rioting began: ..."

OK, as a parent, I would be FURIOUS if my kid were not allowed on the bus, not to mention being terrified for her wellbeing. She NEEDS that bus, and I'm sure the other kids, who were probably 99% good kids, just wanted to get the heck out of the danger zone.

What I don't understand, is why they started throwing things if they wanted to stay safe. They could tell that the cops were tense and up to no good, so why start something? Where did the kids get the idea that throwing things at cops when you are totally surrounded would be a good idea? Please don't tell me "kids do stupid things". I blame the parents if they didn't raise their kids to know better than that.

Wouldn't it be better just to stand there until the cops got bored? Let the parents come and protest to get their kids back! Surely most of those kids had cell phones and could call home, or ask their parents to come home from work.

↑ mazal555 ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 4:15 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

Yes, when you get bussed in, you can call Dad and ask him to leave his $7/hour job (which he probably needs to have 2, since everyone knows you can't live on minimum wage) and take the bus (that's not running) to come and get you out how? The ones who could do that probably did before school was over.

This is like how they evacuated people before Katrina. you can take the bus, but we're not running the buses. So if you can't afford a car, you die.

And again, we are talking 14-18 year olds who can't get home, who are hungry because they didn't bring dinner, who still mostly kept calm for hours and hours while being detained for no reason. I'm not saying I am for rioting. I am not. But let's also be realistic here. These are not trained activists like you were. These are kids.

↑ Fox ↓

Wed, Apr 29 2015, 5:02 pm

ora_43 wrote:

So you won't see a perfect victim because this isn't an issue about how police treat perfectly innocent people; it's about how black people are being killed for being less than perfectly innocent.

Exactly! And the problem defies most of our normal responses because it doesn't fit the pattern of typical racism.

Years ago, everyone thought that the problem could be solved by putting more minority police on the streets in their own ethnic/cultural communities.

That's been helpful in areas like community policing, but it hasn't lived up to expectations in the matter of police brutality. Too often, it has just meant that you have the privilege of being beaten up by a cop whose skin color is the same as yours or who has a similar last name.

Minorities in law enforcement generally come to identify with police culture more than their community of origin.

Although I don't have the statistics, my anecdotal observation is that "DWB" (Driving While Black) is a ticketable offense in my neighborhood. But just as often as not, it's an African-American/Black/Person of Color/Non-European cop doing the ticketing.