The video below sums up the worsening situation in Baltimore. Protesters have been sabotaging fire hoses to stop the Fire Department from saving buildings. The CVS in this case was first looted and then burned (as have other business and cars). When the Fire Department showed up, this man punctured the hose to frustrate efforts at putting out the fire. In the meantime, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake denounced the “thugs” in the streets of her city. She however added another mangled quote after her earlier assurance that the police would give protesters “space” to destroy. For the riots consuming the city during the afternoon and in the early evening. The mayor objected that the city is being “destroyed by thugs who in a very senseless way are trying to tear down what so many have fought for.” People immediately asked if there was a sensible way to tear down the city.
The mayor was clearly trying to convey the pain of watching this great city being destroyed by thugs who cared little for its history or its people:
MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE: What we see tonight that is going on in our city is very disturbing. It is very clear there is a difference between what we saw over the past week with the peaceful protests, those who wish to seek justice, those who wish to be heard, and want answers and the difference between those protests and the thugs who only want to incite violence and destroy our city. I’m a life-long resident of Baltimore and too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs who in a very senseless way are trying to tear down what so many have fought for. Tearing down businesses. Tearing down and destroying property, things that we know will impact our community for years. We are deploying every resource possible to gain control of the situation and to ensure peace moving forward.
The man puncturing fire hoses sums up her point vividly.
@ JT
This report contains additional information regarding the charges in the death of Freddie Gray, including a brief interview of another prisoner in the police van with him:
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/29929-breaking-officers-in-freddie-gray-case-to-be-charged-in-homicide
Freddie Gray, not Gary.
@ JT
Criminal charges have been filed against the Baltimore Police Department officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gary:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/criminal-charges-freddie-gray_n_7188946.html?ir=Politics&utm_campaign=050115&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-politics&utm_content=FullStory&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003
@ Aridog
If you had clicked on the link I provided to the whole article I quoted from, you’d have seen that the article was published on 4/28/15, making “yesterday” refer to 4/27/15. Here it is, again:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/28/1380894/-How-Balt-Riot-Police-Helped-Spark-the-Rioting-The-Psychology-of-Militarized-Police-Crowds
And here are photos of police in riot gear, taken by Slate, on April 27, 2015, the day you say the police were “…laid back and were NOT militarily armed or in tight formation…”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_slatest/2015/04/baltimore_erupts_freddie_gray_outrage_turns_violent_photos.html
Ken Rogers quoted this….
“All those are relevant to what occurred, but I’d like to address a more immediate factor that I believe set the stage for the riots yesterday: the heavily militarized presence of the police themselves. Even before the first rock was thrown, legions of police were openly deployed in full riot gear, armed with tear gas, pepper spray, batons, tasers, guns that fired ‘non-lethal’ rounds such as rubber bullets, etc. Take a look at this image of these officers in their full gear yesterday (from Slate):”
Fundamentally, that entire theory is a lie. Period. The “riot” began on Monday 27 April, not “yesterday” on 28 April, or early 29 April. On 27 April the Baltimore cops laid back and were NOT militarily armed or in tight formation (witness their loosey goosey scrambled silly retreat from rocks and bricks)….that “militarization” stuff came later after the politicians got done dithering and peeing on each other’s legs….and the other PD’s plus National Guard stepped up. That was a “response” not a “cause.”
IMO, the over abundant presence of sundry snotty media was more of a cause, especially ofter curfew, than anything else. They were falling all over each other, on comera no less. Sean Hanity kept asking his field folks to ask questions designed to provoke…small risk to him at his prissy desk in NYC, but far more a risk to the poor schmucks who were supposed to ask the moronic questions in the middle of high tension.
And that opinion is from a conservative Republican, not some weenie liberal. The difference is this: I’ve been through a “riot” like Baltimore, but larger, as a working full time college student…and know BS when I see it or hear it.
My post which had been here earlier, has disappeared. Is someone able to find it?
For people analyzing the pathology of the rioters, here’s my question:
Do you have a sociological analysis of why the wealthiest and most powerful among our citizens have committed heinous crimes such as murder, torture and stealing of at least 23 trillion dollars from the public coffers?
Did these criminals come from broken homes? Do you think it was genetic? What is your feeling concerning these criminal thugs? Seriously, do you have a theory about them?
And I do not know if this has been mentioned on this particular thread, but Gray had spinal surgery the week before. He was supposed to be recuperating in bed, not on the street allegedly selling drugs. A normal arrest could have caused a fatal spinal injury, leaving the cops at a loss as to how their arrestee suddenly became paralyzed.
That said, cops are responsible for the welfare of whom they arrest. If he declared he had asthma, symptomatic or no, they should have located his inhaler, if he knew where it was, or taken him to a hospital. They are cops, not physicians, but when did he exhibit signs of a spinal injury? What did he say? At the first sign of injury, he should have been taken directly to the hospital.
I’ve been on ride-alongs here in CA many years ago. I recall that when a suspect suffered a slight scratch trying to escape, he was taken to the ER.
So this investigation is important into what went wrong. It may have been that medical protocol was not followed, or needs to be amended.
But, once again, people rioted and howled racism before all the facts were in. Then it will be, “Oh, this was never really about Gray, it was about other things, but we still want all those cops to go to jail!”
We need to get all the information and then make informed decisions as to next steps.
There is a sure fire way for kids out of poverty stricken neighborhoods. Stay in school. Study hard. Do not do drugs. Do not join gangs. Do not break the law. Do not get yourself, or anyone else, pregnant if you’re not married. Get an academic scholarship to college in another state. Once there, get part-time jobs during school breaks to establish a work history, sign up for internships, get a professor in your field to mentor you, and launch your career from that college. Once you’re a success, get your mom out, too. Invest in a non-profit after-school program for tutoring, and other programs that help poor kids stay in school who don’t have parents at home to help them with their homework or monitor what they’re doing. But by no means ever move back into the city. It will bite you.
The tragedy is that the successes in Baltimore, business owners who may have risen from within the community, had their buildings burned. People who owned cars had them burnt. Fire hoses were punctured. A youth center that would have helped kids was burnt. There is a runaway self destructive tendency that rears its ugly head in riots, which only slow burned before. Before they’re burning down their neighbor’s buildings, they do the exact opposite of the recipe for success. They give their mothers gray hairs as they destroy their own chances in life, day by day, and then when they’ve thrown enough road blocks in their own way, they burn down an old folks home.
The type of person who throws a rock at someone’s head, pokes holes in a fire hose, or burns down a youth center is not someone of character asking for help out of a dire situation. It’s someone who likes the chaos and pain. They make bad decision after bad decision until they’re dead or in jail, but they take no responsibility for their condition. It’s thugs like them that make the neighborhood so dangerous for kids. They are the real roadblock to kids’ success – they create the danger that make kids want to join gangs, they tempt them with crimes to earn money when the jobs flee a crime riddled city, they make the streets unsafe but call racism against cops battling a war zone every day.
@ SFGR
Yes, if your fantasies were reality. Fortunately for everyone, they aren’t.
Hmmm. This:
Could just as easily been this:
Or this:
Or this:
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@ JT
I agree with the following assessment:
“There are many factors that contributed to the riots that broke out yesterday in the lower income community of West Baltimore, the day of Freddie Gray’s funeral, despite the best intentions of community leaders, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the Police Commissioner, as well as the wishes of Gray’s family.
“Obviously, while the pent-up anger toward the Baltimore police over the death of Freddie Gray was a huge factor, there were many others, as well. Decades of abuses by the BPD, including the far too often employment of excessive force that led to many injuries and deaths. The utter lack of any accountability by police officers to the community that suffered under these oppressive and unjust policing practices. The failure of the local educational system due to serious underfunding and official neglect. ‘Poor’ economic outcomes for people living in that part of Baltimore, grossly inadequate housing and high rates of incarceration, especially among young people.
“All those are relevant to what occurred, but I’d like to address a more immediate factor that I believe set the stage for the riots yesterday: the heavily militarized presence of the police themselves. Even before the first rock was thrown, legions of police were openly deployed in full riot gear, armed with tear gas, pepper spray, batons, tasers, guns that fired ‘non-lethal’ rounds such as rubber bullets, etc. Take a look at this image of these officers in their full gear yesterday (from Slate):” (Emphasis added)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/28/1380894/-How-Balt-Riot-Police-Helped-Spark-the-Rioting-The-Psychology-of-Militarized-Police-Crowds
@ JT
Thuggery vs What?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/29/1381059/-Carl-Stokes-to-CNN-s-Erin-Burnett-Thugs-Just-call-them-N-ggers-then?detail=email#
I wonder how many businesses will be willing to open up in this area and bring in jobs after this? How much taxpayer money went into the massive response that now can’t go to other uses?
These thoughtless rioters are only hurting themselves.
Punching holes in a fire hose – now that’s just pathetic.
Over a dozen buildings burned, including an old folks’ home and youth center, and over a hundred cars burned.
That’s their own neighborhood they’re wrecking. Their own micro job climate. They just dried up a bunch of jobs in their own yard, all while people in the crowd were on camera saying they needed jobs.
Oh, the irony.
Aridog – I hear you on excessive taxation. I live in CA, the land of tax-and-spend. We’re taxed up to our ears, but we drive on gridlocked, potholed roads, haven’t build a reservoir to capture rain in 40 years, but we’re blowing $65 billion on a vacation train to San Francisco which will cause a net increase in pollution, and need further taxpayer subsidies in perpetuity.
Karen – they may qualify for cleanup crews, maybe apprentice labor.
TJustice … you did catch that I said:“In those days the police were laid back, not provocatively aggressive….which doesn’t match the accusations of today” …e.g., not my accusation, but those of others who assert it as a cause. For example, those who object to “stop & frisk.”