Baltimore "riots" and protests - Freddie Gray

[Lord Raven]

I don't normally post in SD, but this one actually hits close to home quite literally because I grew up in the (surrounding) area and I have a bunch of friends that are living very close to this right now.

Anyway, some backstory: Baltimore cops are so corrupt that they made a TV series about how bad the inner city can get and how fucked up it all is and the most recent victim was young Freddie Gray. Homeboy had an arrest record for a bunch of drugs, bolted at the site of cops and was arrested due to concealing an illegal kind of knife - fair enough for the arrest, since he's running and he is doing something illegal - but that's not really the issue at hand. He was put into the back of a police car with hand cuffs and no seatbelt and cops drove around like crazy dudes (the term is Rough Ride, which Baltimore cops are actually notorious for) and caused him to fracture parts of his spine and subsequently enter a coma and eventually die. Basically, police brutality.

This has lead to weeks of peaceful protest, followed by rioting and weird events like the Bloods and the Crips uniting to assist in the protest. From what you hear on the news, it's a full blown riot, but from my understand and keeping in touch with people around there, it's quite a bit of rioting and a significant amount more of peaceful protest as shown here (warning: biased due to showing an extreme amount of the other side).

I mean, I saw it as a long time coming myself, because Baltimore's poverty is horrific and cops there are completely fucked up. I've never gotten pulled over in Baltimore, but I know many friends (like half of my friends in undergrad were African American) that were pulled over for almost no reason and followed by officers for no real reason. I remember my friends were kind of waiting for something to happen cause it was me (a Pakistani man who looks middle eastern) and four of my african-american friends in a car in the city once who kind of hid when they saw cops (and none of them have an arrest record fyi considering I spent like 90% of my time in undergrad with them). Those are just personal accounts I've heard from others, the real messed up crap is relatively under the radar (reported but doesn't make major news).

It's also pretty terrible because the majority of the surrounding areas seem to have the best education in the country and Baltimore City is left in the dust with around a 30% graduation rate among other things. I'll dig up a source on this, but they base prison funding on elementary school test results in the city as well, which is equally fucked up. Makes me wonder if that prison money could go towards fixing the area.

More on these rough rides; I think the figure is something like 5.6 million in settlements over the past year (or few years) due to major injuries due to them, which is egregious given that they're wasting that money on a practice that should not be performed which could go elsewhere, like fixing horrific education system in the city.

I'm kind of annoyed that the media's just portraying it as chaos in Baltimore, I am sure it is because it is mostly African Americans protesting (given that's the majority of the city's populace) when it's a lot more peaceful protest than actual rioting. The media does not really seem to place African Americans in a good light and I doubt it likes the city of Baltimore because of The Wire, being historically ghetto (despite having a very nice and very soothing harbor area and downtown), and building a statue of a man who was accused of murder but "got off" on obstruction of justice near M&T Bank Stadium (Ray Lewis).

What's your viewpoint on all of this? Could it be another case of citizens trying to get racist cops some comeuppance? Is it a long time waiting, given all accounts of similar reports of police brutality and unnecessary violence and Baltimore's very very fucked up history with regards to crime? Or something else entirely? What kind of overhaul would Baltimore really need? Could these "uprisings" (that's how people are viewing them at any rate) spread to other parts of the nation as impoverished as the inner city?

Sorry if this came off as rambling, I'm also venting a bit because it's aggravating to me. I've participated in various volunteering events to clean up streets and schools in those areas and it annoys me that the government is putting forth zero effort into overhauling it. It's not surprising to me, just aggravating.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Lord Raven

[Snowy_One]

Snowy's thoughts: I am not going to comment on if what the police did was right or wrong. Something like that is not what is key to this case. What is key is the reaction by the black community.

Firstly, no matter what the crime the police committed, the rioting that has happened that has caused property damage and resulting in buildings being ransacked and burnt down despite no relation to the incident is wrong. It's one thing to attack a police van out of disgust and contempt with the police it's another to attack a hold for the elderly because of contempt for the police. Maybe this is only a small faction, and I'm willing to accept that, but something like this is only going to cause barriers and tensions to rise across the nation as people become either more wary of their black neighbors or more aggressive at tearing down anything that remotely resembles 'racism' in the country even if its not.

Secondly, what the police did is something I would most certainly not approve of, but my image of the police is as guardians of the law trying to keep the peace and this does not conform to that image or ideal. I'm sure some cop could argue that drastic measures need to be taken or some lawyer find a legal loophole, but as far as I'm concerned even if 'roughriding' was 'necessary' how they acted after he entered the coma is just... horrible. That definitely speaks to me of police brutality but I'm not so sure it's 'racism' since, as you said, he did have a criminal track record and was committing a crime when arrested. If the reason was that he really was a criminal then the black community SHOULD NOT support him! A criminal is a criminal is a criminal no matter the race or color and doing a good deed does not suddenly wash away the guilt, especially if there was no good deed done at all besides being in the crosshairs. If the charge really was racism then I would definitely want some effort put into changing the police force but I have no idea what needs to be done or how.

As for the issue of poverty, I hold no answers. My gut reaction is that this may be the case of people being either unmotivated and willing to rely on the government for their needs or people whom have chosen squalor over an attempt at improvement but I also know that this is not the case for everyone and, for some people, there really is no way out. We live in a world where the quality of life is decided by many things, opportunity being one of them, and some people simply never get that door opened. There are the boilerplate answers such as 'focus on education' and they really do hold true (seriously, do you know how much some teachers get paid?) but that won't touch on why Baltimore is in such a dire strait when, as you pointed out, the surrounding area has the best education in the country. There is something specific to Baltimore that destroys this chance then and, without knowing Baltimore, I can only guess as to what it is.

My simplest answer would be to find ways to provide simple jobs for people. Maybe the government could find a way to encourage people to move out west to establish or work on farms for example? Maybe some effort needs to be put in to Baltimore to find ways to attract jobs or get them presented to the people. Maybe the problem isn't jobs but elsewhere. However, education and work tend to be two things that bring about success and stability.

Course, I'm just dumb Snowy, so I probably messed up bad and said something horribly offensive.

[Skynstein]

"A criminal is a criminal" The problem is that it's not the police's job to use "roughriding". Police is supposed to use the minimum force necessary to stop the criminal. If police starts to "have fun" with criminals, they're violating their rights. Police is not supposed to be vengeful, or to abuse, even if the criminal is a rapist and a murderer, for example.

[Lord Raven]

The entire issue is how they dealt with the crime, not the fact that he had a criminal record. What he was arrested for - which was actually just running from the cops (which they may have had some reasonable suspicion to pursue him if they recognized him) initially then came the concealed weapon - is not the issue, it's the way they treated him. The racism aspect comes from the fact that they are unreasonably suspicious towards a bunch of african americans they see and are also needlessly aggressive towards them. They are supposed to be our guardians but they are abusing power.

Furthermore, many african americans in baltimore are arrested for stupid stuff. I forgot to mention that everything on his arrest record was actually dropped eventually meaning that he was probably arrested for stupid bullshit. The idea is not behind supporting him anyway (although he was innocent relative to his punishment) it's behind protesting the history of terrible law enforcement, effectively giving him the death penalty and the cops getting what amounts to a slap on the wrist (though they were recently convicted). You could make the argument that white people are arrested less because theres less in that area, but I could bite back by saying that black people are basically forced to go through poverty because nobody cares about the area. As I said the media's portraying this as a senseless and nasty riot, whereas they just kind of laugh off riots from shit like OSU winning a championship this year and the primary difference is a) protesting cops vs winning a game and b) the race of the people involved. Also c) OSU's riot was actually more dangerous than what's going on in Baltimore but I digress, because this thread and issue is not only about the riots but the actually peaceful protesting and the reasoning behind it.

As for the issue of poverty, I hold no answers. My gut reaction is that this may be the case of people being either unmotivated and willing to rely on the government for their needs or people whom have chosen squalor over an attempt at improvement but I also know that this is not the case for everyone and, for some people, there really is no way out. We live in a world where the quality of life is decided by many things, opportunity being one of them, and some people simply never get that door opened. There are the boilerplate answers such as 'focus on education' and they really do hold true (seriously, do you know how much some teachers get paid?) but that won't touch on why Baltimore is in such a dire strait when, as you pointed out, the surrounding area has the best education in the country. There is something specific to Baltimore that destroys this chance then and, without knowing Baltimore, I can only guess as to what it is.

We went through a horrid recession in the 80s, which I mainly know because Bob Irsay (former owner of the Indianapolis Colts who were the Baltimore Colts) held the city hostage during a time when crime rates and poverty rates skyrocketed, demanding a stadium when we could not afford it, and shopping the team for that reason. It was also a sight of major drug dealings, and because of this poverty many people in that area have to resort to drugs and prostitution for that money while getting their kids involved. Lots and lots of unwanted pregnancies as well (probably due to bad education especially in sex ed, which is pretty bad through most of the country but especially bad in the inner city) leading to single mothers who are already in an unfavorable environment.

When situations come to this, then you need to actually bring jobs to the area, many of which go overseas anyway.

It's very difficult to be motivated to do well in school when you're not in an environment that encourages that. I'd also like to give some more context to the surrounding areas, because the surrounding areas are where people reside when they work at NIH, NASA @ Goddard, NSA, FDA, NIST, and the major universities (College Park, Towson, UMBC) which are all within like 30 minutes of the city. EDIT: Also there's a bunch of employment around DC which is only like 45 minutes from areas west of Baltimore, but I'm mainly listing STEM things given that I'm interesting in working in those places when I'm finally done with the hell that is graduate school. But the city itself really gets jack shit, and nobody wants to live there cause there's nothing there, and there's nothing there because nobody wants to live in a dangerous area where nobody's doing anything.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Lord Raven

[Rekt no Ken]

Charges were filed against the cops responsible for his death. Hopefully bad cops can be punished and weeded out from the force, and not just in Baltimore.

Looking at the cops responsible, half are white, half are black. I don't think the issue is so much white-vs-black (as much as the media likes to create that sensationalist racial narrative) as it is police-vs-civilian.

[Lord Raven]

It's not necessarily white-on-black it's cops-on-black.

[-Cynthia-]

I found the Baltimore police pretty nice actually, they drove me home once late at night when I was lost. Then again, as we say in the tier list topics PEMN (I'm also white).

The Baltimore area has a lot of jobs from what I've found, more or less depending on how you stretch it though since it 'bleeds' into the DC Metro area, they just don't require living in the city. I think some parts of the city are developing(Canton I think?), but areas like East Baltimore are really shitty.

[eclipse]

Charges were filed against the cops responsible for his death. Hopefully bad cops can be punished and weeded out from the force, and not just in Baltimore.

Assuming what I read online was correct, one of the organizations affiliated with the police wrote a very lovely letter to the prosecutor (or whoever announced those charges) after the charges were revealed. Given the tone of said letter, I think she's doing something right.

[Crysta]

The extent of his injuries prompted a giant WTF from me (not just because they were severe enough to kill him). What did they do, go off-roading in the mountains? How is that in any way considered an acceptable thing among the police force?

I know absolutely 0% of Baltimore and I can already tell there's some drastic lack of oversight at the very least. I wouldn't trust these people around anyone I care about.

And I'm certain there's a racial component there, but you really can't expect someone to come out and say "yeah I did it because I'm a racist cop". Especially not these cops. They will deny and deny and deny. But actions speak much louder than words.

And I also don't think there being black cops involved immediately means it's not there, either.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Crysta

[blah the Prussian]

Assuming what I read online was correct, one of the organizations affiliated with the police wrote a very lovely letter to the prosecutor (or whoever announced those charges) after the charges were revealed. Given the tone of said letter, I think she's doing something right.

Well, racism in a single person is a lot easier to prove than racism in an entire institution. It's not enough to prosecute the cops responsible; as long as there are more racist cops this will happen again. There must be a comprehensive investigation into the BPD to try t purge all racist elements.

[eclipse]

Well, racism in a single person is a lot easier to prove than racism in an entire institution. It's not enough to prosecute the cops responsible; as long as there are more racist cops this will happen again. There must be a comprehensive investigation into the BPD to try t purge all racist elements.

. . .did you read the charges, and the subsequent letter?

This isn't about racism, this is about a police organization being up in arms over legitimately having to answer for this. And this tells me that BPD does have something to answer for.

[blah the Prussian]

. . .did you read the charges, and the subsequent letter?

This isn't about racism, this is about a police organization being up in arms over legitimately having to answer for this. And this tells me that BPD does have something to answer for.

No, I was making a statement about the problems with just pressing charges.

[General Banzai]

Every 20 years you get race riots in this country, it's just that they didn't happen in Los Angeles this time

1940s: Zoot Suit

1960s: Watts/other race riots

1992: Rodney King

2010s: Ferguson, Baltimore

Also fortunately, this iteration of riots is way more civilized than in the past. I wrote a novel on the Rodney King riots and did pretty extensive research on it, about 58 people died after South Central LA descended into chaos for 6 days, Korean merchants shot semiautomatics in the streets, people were pulled out of their truck and bludgeoned to death with concrete blocks. The media laps these recent riots up but really they're nothing. Every round of riots leads to reforms in the system, and as such a progressive improvement has occurred. For instance, after Rodney King, the police forces of Los Angeles and other major cities really shipped up their act, that's why the riots now are taking place in weird racial suburbs like Ferguson

Edited May 2, 2015 by General Banzai

[eclipse]

No, I was making a statement about the problems with just pressing charges.

This is what you originally responded to:

Assuming what I read online was correct, one of the organizations affiliated with the police wrote a very lovely letter to the prosecutor (or whoever announced those charges) after the charges were revealed. Given the tone of said letter, I think she's doing something right.

Nowhere did I make a statement about race. This is about a police force where some of its officers are being charged via lawful means, and an organization who immediately reacts by sending a vaguely threatening letter (to put it mildly). So why did you put something about race in it?

[blah the Prussian]

This is what you originally responded to:

Nowhere did I make a statement about race. This is about a police force where some of its officers are being charged via lawful means, and an organization who immediately reacts by sending a vaguely threatening letter (to put it mildly). So why did you put something about race in it?

I misunderstood what you were saying. On a side note, where is this letter? I tried to google it but couldn't find it.

[Excellen Browning]

In the Netherlands there's a policy that forces people who have been unemployed for a long time to move if they get a job in an other part of the country, under certain circumstances. It also forces them to look for jobs or take help finding them (The state subsidizes all of this, mind you)

I'm not saying this would in any way or form be possible in the US or Maryland, but it would probably clean up downtown Baltimore within a few years. Most of the jobless people will be forced to move; if records are kept well, gangsters will be caught in this as well; there's very little time for being a career criminal if you have to work 40 hours a week.

I've just always been weirded out by the fact that a lot of Americans expect a minority that has historically always been supressed and kept down to just work their way out of it, without any form of investment.

[eclipse]

I misunderstood what you were saying. On a side note, where is this letter? I tried to google it but couldn't find it.

Actual letter

Some context

More actions by the Baltimore FOP

[Lord Raven]

I've just always been weirded out by the fact that a lot of Americans expect a minority that has historically always been supressed and kept down to just work their way out of it, without any form of investment.

From my viewpoint, it always comes from a lack of empathy.

[blah the Prussian]

Actual letterSome contextMore actions by the Baltimore FOP

Holy shit. So that's basically really condescending blackmail. I see what you mean.

[Elibean Spaceman]

I don't get the riots that are happening every now and then. If it's a Black vs Black thing, ironically, people don't say anything (according to my mother, at least). If it's a White vs Black case however, people start getting crazy. So crazy that they start going into stores and breaking stuff, and burning police cars.

[Lord Raven]

That's an ignorant comment.

It's cops-vs-black, first of all, as well as cops using excess force against minorities when there aren't many examples of cops using these brutal methods against white people. Whether or not it's direct racism or not, there is still a problem with people assuming that African-American youth are thugs.

This is different from black-vs-black. Are you and your mother referring to basically gang violence and the like? Because you don't want your cops adhering to the standards of gang violence. Both are issues in our society, but cops should be held to a significantly higher standard to gangs. You and your mother are oversimplifying the situation far too much. It's not like what's going on in Baltimore is all riots; again, it's way more proper and peaceful protests than violence.

Some of my friends also recently marched in Baltimore in protest and there wasn't much of that happening, just lots and lots of people protesting police brutality. Yeah there's a bunch of crazy shit, but that's only the stuff that gets reported because that's more interesting than "a bunch of people are walking down the street to protest what happened with Freddie Gray." In fact, that's what it was like for two weeks prior to when the more violent stuff did happen, but everybody ignored it.

EDIT: For some proof that the rioting is over emphasized, redditer /u/I_ate_your_dog posted a 150-picture imgur album of the protesting.

https://imgur.com/a/5pSKc#0

(Strangely enough I saw a few of my friends on this album, also I see a bunch of people from my alma mater, and the first five pictures are the transit from campus... oh memories)

Edited May 2, 2015 by Lord Raven

[Rapier]

I'm kind of annoyed that the media's just portraying it as chaos in Baltimore, I am sure it is because it is mostly African Americans protesting (given that's the majority of the city's populace) when it's a lot more peaceful protest than actual rioting

Peaceful protest? I confess I did not read much into it, but these protests seem anything but peaceful.

I don't mean to say that all protests were violent, mind you. I'm saying that, in some cases, there were really violent protests, where the term 'riot' is well applied. While I condone police abuse and racism (I don't know whether it was done because of racism, or because the police is corrupt), I condone violent protests as well. There are much better means to protest.

Itt's cops-vs-black, first of all, as well as cops using excess force against minorities when there aren't many examples of cops using these brutal methods against white people

If we're speaking about a city where there are predominantly black people, it comes as no surprise that black people are arrested more than white people. It is not a proof of racism, it's statistics.

Every round of riots leads to reforms in the system, and as such a progressive improvement has occurred. For instance, after Rodney King, the police forces of Los Angeles and other major cities really shipped up their act, that's why the riots now are taking place in weird racial suburbs like Ferguson

Nothing stops them from doing peaceful protests instead of riots. Their motives do not justify their crimes.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Rapier

[Lord Raven]

Peaceful protest? I confess I did not read much into it, but these protests seem anything but peaceful.

I don't mean to say that all protests were violent, mind you. I'm saying that, in some cases, there were really violent protests, where the term 'riot' is well applied. While I condone police abuse and racism (I don't know whether it was done because of racism, or because the police is corrupt), I condone violent protests as well. There are much better means to protest.

I'm going to assume you mean "do not condone."

I think you haven't read much into it. Being in contact from people in the area right now, as well as those who have traveled to the area, as well as many other local news sources I can safely say that there is more peaceful protest than violent riots. At the same time, there was much more peaceful protest around a week prior to the violence breaking out, so it's not like Freddie Gray died then bam a week later there was chaos. On top of that the violence has subsided considerably over the past week, especially once the curfew was enacted.

EDIT: Also, it happened for both reasons. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

If we're speaking about a city where there are predominantly black people, it comes as no surprise that black people are arrested more than white people. It is not a proof of racism, it's statistics.

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/experiments/usatoday/2014/11/arrests-interactive/

Whether or not it's predominantly African American doesn't matter. African Americans are 2-3 times as likely to be arrested and be subject to excessive force nationwide than their Caucasian counterparts; it's not that it's proof of racism so much as an example. The proof already exists all throughout the country.

Nothing stops them from doing peaceful protests instead of riots. Their motives do not justify their crimes.

Don't act like you're better. Neither you nor I have no clue what it's like to live right in the inner city, and while we have all sorts of sources and articles we can read neither of us can 100% understand what's going on through a person's mind who has grown up in that environment unless we've actually been through it. It is justified to a certain degree, as much as violence can be justified, but it's not like either of us are in the right to say that what rioters are doing is the wrong way to approach it.

Even despite injuries and deaths (I'm not sure what the toll is) it did manage to bring attention to the situation that the peaceful protests did not. As illogical and awful as it sounds, it served its purpose, although through a means I do not agree with.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Lord Raven

[Mango Giamatti]

The media coverage of Baltimore has been appalling. They are more concerned with the property damage than the fact a man has lost his life. The windows of CVS are insured; Freddie Gray is never coming back to life. Furthermore, the rhetoric that is being used is disgraceful. Writing off an entire movement as "a bunch of thugs" undermines the actual problems facing the city. No one is calling the police officers who killed Freddie Gray "thugs". MLK Jr once said that "the most horrible and pervasive form of violence is poverty" but the media does not seem to care.

[Balcerzak]

// The following information obtained by Nitrodon

//

// The formula for enemies automatically leveling up is fairly simple.

// First, the class growth rate in a stat is multiplied by the number of

// levels gained. Then, a RN is generated between 7/8 and 9/8 of this

// value (as opposed to the usual 0-99 RNs). Finally, that random number

// is used as the total growth rate, and a second RN is used accordingly

// to determine how much that stat increases. This is then repeated for

// every stat (except FE7 luck).