The scene at the corner of Gilmor Street and Riggs Avenue on Saturday night is not a protest. It is an occupation. The police, wearing riot gear and holding batons and shields, outnumber the protesters more than 3-to-1 and are arranged in a circle, blocking protesters in. Except that most of them aren’t exactly protesters. They aren’t outside agitators. They live in the neighborhood and one of their friends and neighbors was killed in police custody. They know it could be them. They are sad and angry. And the police force of Commissioner Anthony Batts, who is holding a press conference a block away at the Western District precinct office, takes the opportunity for a show of force.
Saturday starts out subdued. When I arrive in Sandtown-Winchester around noon, there is a kind of calm quietness as people sit on their stoops talking, staring, smoking blunts, or drinking sodas and waiting for the world to descend on their streets.
Two brothers, both young men, sit on a low wall drinking sodas near the St. Vincent de Paul building at 1114 N. Mount St. BJ, the older of the two, says he’s glad to see people coming to the neighborhood today. “The politicians come around, we need to see ’em more often, not just something as serious as an event like this,” he says. “Come around, show your face a little more often. I vote. I’m a voter. So I would love to see their face more often.”
“I don’t like the police, I got bad experience around them,” his brother Jay says. “You can be walking down the street minding your own business and say something already happened in the neighborhood, I understand that you are more cautious about what’s going on, but you can’t just hop out on everybody weapon-ready. You hear me? You can’t just come at everybody all tough and rough. Just walking down the street and want to go to the store, peaceful.They need to build a better relationship with the community.”
A couple of blocks away, a woman who wants only to be identified as Latonya is sitting on a stoop with her neighbor, her niece, and her toddler-age daughter.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
2 comments:
If it is a community. Put up a wall, take care of your own crime and don't call the police or ask for government assistance. You can't have t both ways. We want the police when "I" call them otherwise leave us alone. I say go for it.
Right 10:59. Criminals don't walk around with a sign around their neck saying "I'm about to commit a crime." This is why the SCOTUS ruled that if 2 of several factors are met- i.e. running from LE, in a high crime area, this gives LE a reasonable suspicion to give chase. Resident claim they want crime prevented but don't want to allow LE to practice measures of prevention allowed by law.
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