US Opinion and Commentary

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Why Freddie Gray Is Still a Thing One Year On

Posted April 22nd, 2016 at 1:16 pm (UTC-4)
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The outrage that erupted and spilled into the streets of Baltimore in the days after 25-year-old African-American Freddie Gray died in police custody harkened back to another painful and ugly moment in American history. Heavily armed police on the streets, clouds of tea gas, protesters being dragged away against their will: it could have been Baltimore 48 years ago—1968—after the assassination of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

But it was April 2015. The city burned with anger, outrage and grief for days. Several months later, six Maryland police officers—not all were white—were charged in connection with Gray’s death. The state prosecutor cited the cops for improperly arresting and shackling Freddie Gray in violation of police rules by loading him into a van without the required safety restraints, and also ignoring his pleas for help.

Freddie Gray, the riots and the sudden shattering of business as usual in Baltimore morphed into a symbol of all the other recent violence between police and the black community, some recorded on smart phones and uploaded to social media websites. A year later, things are quiet, at least on the surface. But much remains unresolved, prime to erupt again as law enforcement grapples with a crisis that until recently had been swept under the carpet.

A Year After Freddie Gray’s Death, Two Baltimores

Posted April 20th, 2016 at 4:15 pm (UTC-4)
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Have massive protests and an ongoing trial caused police in Baltimore to change? It depends on who you ask.

Tamir Rice Protests Must Be Peaceful

Posted December 29th, 2015 at 10:30 am (UTC-4)
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We are not Baltimore. We are not Ferguson. We are Cleveland, and so far, we have shown the world how to protest without injury or harm to property. When those other cities burned, the violence achieved nothing. Innocent people were hurt and the schism widened between the police and the communities they serve.