Midnight in Baltimore

"The Baltimore Police Department will be an organization that maintains the highest standards of ethics, integrity, and accountability." - Baltimore Police Department Mission Statement

I won't lie. I'm weary. At the time that I pulled myself out of bed to write this post, it was about 10 PM local time, MDT. I'm reading about the case and following people's reactions on Twitter. I'm stressed out and I've been rubbing the part of my head where my the big forehead that I inherited from my mom and the male pattern baldness that I inherited from my father collide. In Colorado, a 25 year old black guy hunches over his laptop to write, again.

In Baltimore, Maryland, Freddie Gray was laid to rest. When my mom asked me about him this afternoon, the details got fuzzy. Was he the guy who was shot on tape? No, that was Walter Scott in South Carolina. Was he the one that was shot by the officer who thought he was using a stun gun? No that was Eric Harris in Oklahoma. Freddie Gray was the guy who got his spine broken during a transport. The details all make me weary.

Freddie Gray was in the back of a police van. He was arrested for carrying a switchblade. He was being transported without a seatbelt. What is also undisputed is that he suffered a severe spinal injury. He's dead.

I can't ignore the story. Even though I don't have cable right now, the story crept into the ESPN app. During the Orioles game on Saturday, the fans were told not to leave at the games end because protesters and police were fighting. My Twitter feed is filled with the thoughts of those who were more brave than I. My Twitter feed is usually preoccupied by sports, but many people have weighed in. Some tweets are in favor of the police, and they use passive voice to describe the spinal injury, so as not to place blame on the people who failed to put Freddie Gray in a seatbelt. Some tweets are in favor of the protestors justifying that cars have been destroyed and parts of a city are on fire. I'm wearied.

I'm going to copy and paste the statement given by the Orioles COO, John Angelos. On the other side of the keyboard, I'm taking a cookie break. Writing this post at one time takes a lot out of me, and I'm exhausted.

"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." - John Angelos

On Sunday in the NBA, a player's shoulder was dislocated. Kevin Love was tussling under the rim with Kelly Olynyk. After the play was decided, the two players were still wrapped up. Olynyk continued to pull away at Love. As a result of that action, Kevin Love suffered a dislocated shoulder. He also suffered a ligament/labrum tear and a bone bruise. At worse, Olynyk behaved recklessly and at best acted with gross negligence. In other facets of life, it's so easy to see when someone causes unnecessary harm. When law enforcement is responsible for the harm, it seems that few people care unless there's a smoking gun and a video and a thousand other factors… then maybe they'll side with the dead guy. It's frustrating, and I'm weary.

Of course, in the dead guy playbook, the Baltimore Police have announced that they are investigating the incident, as if the incident happened in an isolated housing project elevator, and not with the police themselves. On the other hand, the officers involved have been suspended, pending the results of that investigation. I don't particularly care whether an arrest happens because there won't be a conviction. I'm not particularly concerned about convictions for police officers because jails do a poor job of rehabilitating people. Worse than that, the treatment that a police officer would receive in jail from other inmates would be a punishment that would make me uncomfortable. The police officers who behaved in a way that caused this man's death should no longer be police officers. It makes weary even considering these future issues.

To be honest about how little I believe in the process right now, the fact that the arrest was controversial didn't even occur to me at first. And when it did, I just sighed. Before I came to law school, I was a criminal justice major. I could study the interactions between police and their citizenry forever and not get bored. I might be exhausted, but never bored. Whether the arrest was routine and lawful or a ruthless violation of the citizen's constitutional rights, I was always curious about the process. After 3 years of law school, where I've watched professors yawn disinterestedly at bad process, listened to classmates annoyed by the audacity of questioning a police report and observed police telling half-truths and whole lies while under oath, I don't even bother anymore. Yes, it would be nice to know what the probable cause was that led to the stop, because it appears that there may not have been any, but those in authority just don't seem to care enough. Every time I talk about bad process in police stops it falls on deaf ears, and trust me, I'm an expert on deaf ears. I still care, I just don't think anyone else does. It wears on me, but I'm not finished.

I'd be remiss in not mentioning the current riots in Baltimore. The decent people of Baltimore are annoyed with years of police mistreatment. Many of them have chosen to go out to the streets and protest. Most of the protests have been peaceful. A minority of people have behaved violently, looting stores, committing arson and attacking police officers. I've seen versions of the King quote about riots, where he describes them as "the language of the unheard." It bothered me that I haven't seen it in its full context.

"Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The quote, in short, says that riots weren't MLK's thing. His life was committed to nonviolence. But he didn't fully condemn riots either, because he understood that to ignore riots is to ignore the conditions that make people feel that they have no other options. He doesn't just call riots the language of the unheard but he also describes the things that haven't been heard, namely the promise of freedom and justice that has gone unmet along with the segments of society that aren't listening. He said this approximately a month before he was violently killed. He said this after more than a decade of being violently threatened and attacked by city, state and federal officers. He said this after a lifetime of living in the Jim Crow South. If I'm weary from living in New York, where my absolute worst interactions with the NYPD would qualify as a good day for King, I know he must have been weary too.

One of my favorite columns that used to run was "Dead Wrestler of the Week" by David Shoemaker who wrote under the name "The Masked Man." I loved his work. Sporadically, he would write about wrestlers who died early, untimely deaths. The deaths occurred too often for comfort as many died in their 30's and 40's. Even for something as comparatively light as wrestling, Shoemaker had to be worn out after a certain point. He loves wrestling like I love the study of criminal justice and it has to be exhausting to write about the darkest portion of the topics you love. However, even though the work is exhausting, I also understand that there is power in writing about it. Somebody is going to read this. Maybe it influences someone’s thinking. Perhaps it will help sharpens someone’s argument about the incidents in one direction or another. I’m not always comfortable using my voice, but I do have one and for important topics, it is important for me to use it. I got a series of text messages last night that reminded me of that.

I have nothing left to give you. My eyes are red. My head hurts. I'm inconsolably sad. When I first started writing this post, it was midnight in Baltimore. Now the time approaches 5 AM on the east Coast, when the curfew will end. We'll have to see what happens next.

It destroys me on the inside to see that again, I'm writing about a dead kid. It crushes me that, again there's a dead kid to write about. I’m ending this by copying the closing from my Mike Brown post and adding brackets to replace Mike's name with the next guy's name. It's all I have left.

"Even if the police in [Baltimore, Maryland] are reprimanded and "brought to justice", none of that will bring [Freddie Gray] back. None of that will bring a son back to his now grieving mother. None of that will allow him to smile and say I'll be fine as he goes off to school. [Freddie Gray] won't get those opportunities. His life will always be a life snuffed out too soon.

And it hurts…"