Freddie Gray's death on April 19 leaves many unanswered questions. But it is clear that when Gray was arrested in West Baltimore on the morning of April 12, he was struggling to walk. By the time he arrived at the police station a half hour later, he was unable to breathe or talk, suffering from wounds that would kill him.*
Gray died Sunday from spinal injuries. Baltimore authorities say they're investigating how the 25-year-old was hurt—a somewhat perverse notion, given that it was while he was in police custody, and hidden from public view, that he apparently suffered injury. How it happened remains unknown. It's even difficult to understand why officers arrested Gray in the first place. But with protestors taking to the streets of Baltimore since Gray's death on Sunday, the incident falls into a line of highly publicized, fatal encounters between black men and the police. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, a reserve sheriff's deputy in Tulsa, Oklahoma, pleaded not guilty to a second-degree manslaughter charge in the death of a man he shot. The deputy says the shooting happened while he was trying to tase the man. Black men dying at the hands of the police is of course nothing new, but the nation is now paying attention and getting outraged.
Authorities can't say if there was a particularly good reason why police arrested Gray. According to the city, an officer made eye contact with Gray, and he took off running, so they pursued him. Though he'd had scrapes with the law before, there's no indication he was wanted at the time. And though he was found with a switchblade, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said, “We know that having a knife is not necessarily a crime.”
The police say Gray didn't resist arrest and that officers didn't use force, which seems to be mostly corroborated by video shot by bystanders. Gray seems to shout in pain, and his leg seems injured as officers drag him to a police van. (Someone off camera shouts, "His leg broke and y'all dragging him like that!") Gray also had asthma and requested his inhaler, but didn't get it. Yet it's not the leg or the asthma that killed him. Instead, it was a grave injury to his spinal cord. Gray's family said he was treated for three fractured vertebrae and a crushed voice box, the sorts of injuries that doctors say are usually caused by serious car accidents. The van made at least two stops before reaching the police station, but there's no footage to say what happened during the journey or at those stops.
It's a baffling conundrum. "None of the officers describe any use of force," Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said. "None of the officers describe using any force against Mr. Gray." And yet somehow Gray was fatally hurt while in police custody.
It's likely not that mysterious a cause, though, since it seems likely that Mr. Gray was subjected to some sort of abusive treatment at the hands of the officers, and was probably the recipient of what the P.D. in Baltimore calls a "rough ride".
A rough ride. Bringing them up front. A screen test. A cowboy ride. A nickel ride.
Police say that intentionally banging a suspect around in the back of a van isn't common practice. But the range of slang terms to describe the practice suggests it's more common that anyone would hope—and a roster of cases show that Freddie Gray is hardly the first person whose serious injuries allegedly occurred while in police transit. Citizens have accused police of using aggressive driving to rough suspects up for decades in jurisdictions across the country. Though experts don't think it's a widespread practice, rough rides have injured many people, frayed relationships, and cost taxpayers, including Baltimore's, millions of dollars in damages.
Gray's funeral was Monday, eight days after he died and two weeks after he was arrested by Baltimore police under murky circumstances. President Obama sent three aides, including the chair of his My Brother's Keeper task force, to the burial. Protests have roiled the streets of Baltimore ever since Gray died, forcing the city to reckon with a troubled police department and its fraught relationship with black citizens. Over the weekend, mostly peaceful protests caused some minor violence and damage to police cars. On Monday, those protests intensified. A spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department said seven officers had been injured and one was non-responsive.
Despite the turmoil, there's been little new information about how Gray sustained his mortal injuries. Initial reports focused on how it was that Gray got into a van while alive—though he was being dragged—yet emerged less than an hour later unable to breathe or walk. The question has always been what happened in the van—including during several van stops before Gray arrived at a police station and paramedics were called—but now more scrutiny has come on Gray's state when he was arrested. Initially, reports suggested that Gray's arrest was a fairly routine one, even though it wasn't clear why he was detained—Gray took off running after making eye contact with an officer, and was found with a knife. Police also said the 25-year-old was not injured when he got into the van. A video shot by a bystander was inconclusive and didn't show any evidence of Gray being beaten, though he was shouting and his legs appeared limp as he was dragged to the van.
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An extensive report from The Baltimore Sun suggests there are some inconsistencies even in the limited timeline police have released. Police said Gray was arrested a minute after first contact with officers, and was handcuffed "without force or incident." Conversations with witnesses "make clear that Gray's arrest and transport were perceived as being wholly out of the ordinary—even in an area where the drug trade makes an arrest a common occurrence," the Sun's Mark Rector reports. Once police caught Gray, a friend saw one officer with his knee on Gray's neck and another bending his legs back. In video of the arrest, a bystander shouts that Gray's legs are broken and he needs help. He was then placed in the van and driven away. Police now say he should have received medical attention at the scene. Because the investigation didn't start for several days, they also missed opportunities to gather crucial evidence, like a surveillance tape from a store that was taped over.
That's why the van, and the alleged "rough ride," remains central. While medical professionals said the level of damage to Gray's spinal cord—which was 80 percent severed, with a crushed voice box—was the sort of injury that usually only happened in a serious car accident, Dr. Ali Bydon, a Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon, told the Sun that it could have happened progressively, so that the fact that Gray could stand when he got into the van proves nothing. "It can be a progressive, cumulative loss of function if the spinal cord is unstable and unprotected," he said. "You don't need tremendous force to follow up on further injury to the spine—a force you and me can take because we have stable necks, but that an unstable neck cannot withstand."
Emphasis mine.
Demonstrations have started to occur as a result of this, with major protests starting Saturday, and as is usual, a small group broke off from the peaceful protest to go on a violent rampage, getting most of the media coverage as a result.
Muna Karki watched from a darkened second-floor window above the family-owned liquor store on Howard Street on Saturday night as demonstrators charged past, kicking at the storefront security gate.
"We closed, and then we watched from upstairs, but the crowds went right by. Thank God," Karki said Sunday, recounting Saturday's demonstrations to protest the death of Freddie Gray.
Howard Discount Liquors — owned by Kaji Karki, Muna's husband — escaped damage, save for a bent security gate.
Other businesses, including several 7-Eleven stores and a McDonald's just down the street, weren't so lucky.
Along Howard Street the damage sustained by storefronts appeared random — like the path of a tornado. Shards of glass glinted in Sunday sun as business owners assessed the harm done in the protest that resulted in more than 30 arrests.
Ten plate-glass windows of the 7-Eleven at Howard and Baltimore Streets were cracked. Duct tape was placed over the spider-web-shaped fissures. The store was looted, said Margaret Chabris, a 7-Eleven corporate spokeswoman.
Chabris said the convenience chain has 12 stores in the Baltimore area; all were instructed to close early Saturday to keep employees safe.
Four of the stores were damaged, she said, but Chabris said only the one at Howard and Baltimore remained closed Sunday afternoon. She said there was no estimate yet on the amount of damage to the four stores.
"There has really been an outpouring from community members that felt bad for our franchisees," Chabris said. "Two students ... from Morgan State University came [to the Howard Street store] with a mop, bucket, spray cleaners. They were on a mission to help," Chabris said.
Also on Howard Street, a sign was taped to a McDonald's restaurant door. "McDonald's is temporarily closed. Sorry. Mgmt," it said. The door and windows were boarded and the floor was littered with glass.
A 7-Eleven on Light Street had its glass door smashed. Above the door was a softball-sized hole in the storefront.
In the lobby of the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace hotel, Tim and Jenny Rossback, visiting from Philadelphia, described the unusual feeling of approaching Camden Yards for Saturday night's Orioles-Red Sox game and seeing rows of police officers.
"The anxiety-provoking part was when the police were retreating," Tim Rossback said. "You could feel the tension in the air."
The Rossbacks left the game early when it began to rain and saw damaged police cars being towed away. They had come to town for the game and said they would not be dissuaded from returning.
"This is not the only place this is happening," Jenny Rossback said.
Red Sox fans Al Blomberg and Ben Sutphin, both of Salem, Va., also attended Saturday night's game, during which fans were told at one point to remain in the stadium for their safety.
"I've been locked out of stadiums but never locked in," Blomberg said, adding that his walk back to the hotel "was the fastest mile walk I've ever made."
Outside the Western District Police Station, a handful of officers, in uniforms but not riot gear, stood leaning against the metal barricade around the station on Sunday morning. Several cars slowed, rounding the detour from North Mount Street onto Riggs Avenue, where garbage and rocks leftover from the night remained in the street.
Outside St. Luke United Methodist Church on North Gilmor, 59-year-old Wayne Snipes was toting a plastic trash can, sweeping up the rocks and other debris with a well-worn broom.
"I got to get it cleaned up for them," he said of church members arriving for the 11 a.m. service. Snipes said he's lived in the neighborhood all his life but tried to stay away from the protests Saturday.
"I'm not trying to get involved in this," he said. "I don't know why they got to destroy all this property. They still got to live here."
He said members of the church were concerned about the brick building, but it was left untouched.
"The neighborhood is already destroyed enough," Snipes said, looking at a vacant house across the street with missing windows. "They need to do something about these houses."
Snipes said he doesn't believe the police response Saturday night was wrong. "I don't think police were trying to make it worse. They were just trying to calm things down," he said.
But he believes the protests will continue, and he expects he'll be out cleaning up the street again.
"I'll be glad when it's over. I know it is going to be a while," he said. "I just hope they don't mess with the church. We got to go to church."
Interestingly enough, the COO of the Baltimore Orioles, had a surprisingly sympathetic take on the protests despite the inconveniences caused to fans who were forced to stay inside the stadium for a while. To wit:
“The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importances of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.”
As a result of this, in news that is either terrifying or encouraging, this has led to a truce between the Bloods and Crips in the area, who seem to be allying themselves with the Nation Of Islam politically, if not religiously.
Before protests over Freddie Gray’s death turned chaotic, an unlikely alliance was born in Baltimore on Saturday: Rivals from the Bloods and the Crips agreed to march side by side against police brutality.
The alleged gang members are pictured on social media crowding together with Nation of Islam activists, who told The Daily Beast they brokered the truce in honor of Gray, who died last week after sustaining spinal injuries while in police custody.
In one photo, a gang activist in a red sweatshirt crouches to fit into a group photo with rivals decked out in blue bandanas.
“I can say with honesty those brothers demonstrated they can be united for a common good,” said Carlos Muhammad, a minister at Nation of Islam’s Mosque No. 6. “At the rally, they made the call that they must be united on that day. It should be commended.”
The detente was only a small part of the demonstration drawing 1,200 people to Baltimore’s City Hall, but it raised eyebrows among activists. Are things so bad that even Baltimore’s gang adversaries are joining forces to combat law enforcement?
And, of course, there have now been "credible threats" against law enforcement officers, possibly stemming from the truce.
The Baltimore Police Department said Monday that it considers threats to “take out” cops from the Bloods, Crips, and the Black Guerilla Family (among other gangs) to be a credible threat. “Law-enforcement agencies should take appropriate precautions to ensure the safety of their officers,” the a Baltimore PD press release said. Kate Briquelet reports that the Bloods and Crips have quit fighting each other in order to team up and protest police in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray.
And, of course, it's continued through today, Monday, April 27.
City police say as many as seven officers have been injured Monday afternoon in northwest Baltimore, where a large group of juveniles converged and began to throw bricks and other items at officers.
The CVS store at North and Pennsylvania avenues was set on fire around 6:15 p.m.
It all started at Mondawmin Mall, which closed early. SkyTeam 11 video showed a large group of juveniles congregating in the vicinity shortly before 3 p.m.
Baltimore police Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said police are not speculating what the disturbances are related to, but are making sure people in community and officers are safe.
"I know that the images people are seeing on TV are very disturbing. Our highest priority, our first focus right now is to protect the lives of our officers that are out on the street and the people that live and work in that area," Kowalczyk said.
Kowalczyk said seven officers were injured with broken bones and cuts, and one was unresponsive. He said they know officers are in harm's way, and are using tear gas and pepper balls.
"The level of violence that you saw earlier today, the number of officers that we have that were injured, we can't allow that to happen," Kowalczyk said. "The people that are out there right now destroying other individuals' cars, property, money businesses, we're going to investigate and we're going to find those people and we're going to take people into custody."
A WBAL-TV 11 News crew at the mall reported juveniles were throwing rocks and other items. Rocks, bricks and broken glass lay strewn throughout the streets, and a recycling container was lit on fire.
According to police, several people in the group were reported to be armed with sticks, bricks and other weapons.
Police officers have lined portions of Reisterstown Road, WBAL-TV 11 News reporter Barry Simms reported.
A large group surrounded a police car at North and Pennsylvania avenues, destroying the car, police said.
"The group is damaging additional police cars in the area. The group is aggressive and violent," police tweeted.
TL;DR: Like something birthed from the fever dreams of a Spike Lee/Jon Waters co-production, Baltimore has exploded in race riots. While the inspiration for the demonstrations was the death of one man in police custody, likely as the result of negligence and abuse, there is a long history of police abuse in the area, and resentment has been simmering for decades now.
I believe that we're seeing a trend. Not a trend of police abuse, since that's happened in America ever since we had police forces, but rather in communities rising up and refusing to bow down to it anymore. While the violence is deplorable, the vast majority of the demonstrations have been peaceful till now, and frankly, on some level I understand lashing out in frustration once you've taken more than you can stand. It may not be constructive, but it is human. Hopefully the officers involved in this will face some sort of actual justice.
Thoughts?
