Online Editor Austin Schumann talks about the recent trouble in Baltimore
By: AUSTIN SCHUMANN
Online Editor
Buildings were burning, there were riots and looters wherever you looked; police cars were
on fire and both civilians and police officers were injured and taken to hospitals. This is not about the recent trouble in Ferguson; instead it came from the arrest and subsequent death of 25-year-old black man Freddie Gray of Baltimore, Md.
Gray was arrested the morning of April 12, was put into the back of a police van and suffered a spinal injury that resulted in his death seven days later.
Baltimore is following an uncomfortably similar path as Ferguson did after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Reports say that there were a total of 15 buildings and 144 cars set on fire. There was also a fair amount of looting, including the looting and burning of a CVS Pharmacy. The bottom line is that there is no excuse for this kind of behavior.
That does not mean that all involved were treated appropriately. They still had the right to be treated fairly and with respect.
I will not say that there is no such thing as police brutality or racism by police officers against black people.
These things are both undoubtedly true for at least a fraction of police officers in America. The entire thing is a vicious and often violent cycle with each side assuming the worst of the other. It then goes on and on with neither side coming out on top. At this point the view is almost taken away from the original supposed police brutality and focuses on how the community reacts.
From here it becomes hard to support one side when they do the very thing that they claim that they don’t do.
Violent protests do nothing for either side. How does stealing and property damage make you seem like the sympathetic cause? Some of the most successful protests have been of the non-violent type. Gandhi himself pushed for India’s freedom from Britain with marches and sit-ins, and of course there is Dr. Martin Luther King’s own non-violent protests that made huge steps in the fight against racism and segregation. To those that are upset with the state of police brutality in this country, something should definitely be done – not with violence and riots, but peaceful demonstrations.
