US Police Brutality and Racism, 35 Protestors Arrested

Local Editor

Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and so many more are all young black men who died due to police discrimination and brutality. Freddie Gray  whose death triggered a series of protests seeking justice and reform of police practices was the latest victim of a police-involved killing in the US.

Though, there are many unanswered questions in the case of Freddie's death, like why police chased him down and arrested him, when there was no indication that Gray was in the process of or had committed a crime or why they didn't belt him into the van, as required by their own internal regulations.

However, "The Baltimore Sun" - a local American daily newspaper - had reported that Gray was not the only arrestee to have suffered serious injuries from a ride in a police van.

As Americans took to the streets of Baltimore city to protest the unexplained death of Freddie Gray, 35 people were arrested and six police officers received minor injuries after a protest turned violent on Sunday afternoon and evening.

The Police Department in the afternoon released a list of the names of the 31 adults arrested, omitting those of the four juveniles.

Moreover, in a statement, police said a "small contingent of yesterday's protesters caused violent disruptions downtown and in West Baltimore..." It said that otherwise the demonstrations had been "mostly peaceful."

Nevertheless, the protest was the latest expression of a national outcry over a white-dominated US law enforcement establishment that civil rights leaders accuse of routinely disrespecting and brutalizing African-Americans.

Nonetheless, the police department, in a separate statement, also blamed "outside agitators" for the violence, saying those groups "led to small pockets of protesters engaged in criminal activity."

Meanwhile, a coalition of about 25 local religious leaders continued to call for peace.

"From the days of our nation's earliest civil rights sit-ins, Baltimore has a long tradition of peaceful and respectful demonstrations," the coalition said in a statement released by Rawlings-Blake's office.

Accordingly, Anthony Batts, the city's police commissioner, acknowledged on Friday that Gray did not receive timely medical attention for his spinal injury.

In addition, six Baltimore police officers had been suspended in the Gray case.

Henceforth, Gray was one of a number of black men who had died under questionable circumstances during police encounters in recent months.

Last year, weeks of protests followed the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York City.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team