Mother Jones magazine reported that police actions triggered the riot.
On Tuesday, Sam Brodey and Jenna McLaughlin of Mother Jones magazine reported that actions of the Baltimore police triggered the riots. I haven't seen this reported more widely--apologies if I have missed reporting on this article-- and want to make sure that the DK community is aware of this article.
Naturally, there are many factors in a riot. Long-standing grievances. Lack of confidence in the normal political/judicial process. A recent event that seems to crystallizes the grievances. Steve D diaried about the psychological effects of militarized confrontation of civil unrest. VL Baker diaried about how environmental effects such as lead can impact rational decision making. Others have diaried about the environment in which the riot occured, an environment in which Black lives clearly do not matter. We hear about factors ranging from drugs to bad parenting to a 2013 movie The Purge.
But nowhere except in Brodey and McLaughlin have I seen a coherent description of what happened. In Brody and McLaughlin, it seems clear that the proximate cause of the riots was police preventing kids from going home-- to jobs, to take care of younger siblings, to do their homework, or even just to relax at the end of the day. Here are key excerpts:
After Baltimore police and a crowd of teens clashed near the Mondawmin Mall in northwest Baltimore on Monday afternoon, news reports described the violence as a riot triggered by kids who had been itching for a fight all day. But in interviews with Mother Jones and other media outlets, teachers and parents maintain that police actions inflamed a tense-but-stable situation.
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The Baltimore Police Department, which was aware of the "purge" call, prepared for the worst.
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According to eyewitnesses in the Mondawmin neighborhood, the police were stopping busses and forcing riders, including many students who were trying to get home, to disembark. Cops shut down the local subway stop. They also blockaded roads near the Mondawmin Mall and Frederick Douglass High School, which is across the street from the mall, and essentially corralled young people in the area. That is, they did not allow the after-school crowd to disperse.
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The kids were "standing around in groups of 3-4," [teacher Meghan] Harris said in a Facebook message to Mother Jones. "They weren't doing anything. No rock throwing, nothing…The cops started marching toward groups of kids who were just milling about."
A teacher at Douglass High School, who asked not to be identified, tells a similar story: "When school was winding down, many students were leaving early with their parents or of their own accord." Those who didn't depart early, she says, were stranded. Many of the students still at school at that point, she notes, wanted to get out of the area and avoid any Purge-like violence. Some were requesting rides home from teachers. But by now, it was difficult to leave the neighborhood. "I rode with another teacher home," this teacher recalls, "and we had to route our travel around the police in riot gear blocking the road…The majority of my students thought what was going to happen was stupid or were frightened at the idea. Very few seemed to want to participate in 'the purge.'"
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Meg Gibson, another Baltimore teacher, described a similar scene to Gawker: "The riot police were already at the bus stop on the other side of the mall, turning buses that transport the students away, not allowing students to board. They were waiting for the kids…Those kids were set up, they were treated like criminals before the first brick was thrown." With police unloading busses, and with the nearby metro station shut down, there were few ways for students to clear out.
[emphases added]
This is journalism that explains-- unlike work by
Justin Fenton and Erica L. Green of The Baltimore Sun:
When 3 p.m. came, 75 to 100 students heading to Mondawmin Mall were greeted by dozens of police officers in riot gear. The mall is a transportation hub for students from several nearby schools.
The students began pelting officers with water bottles and rocks.
Here, the student's reaction is impossible to understand. They are greeted and then start attacking the officers. We don't hear about students forced off buses or parents blocked from picking up their kids from school. The riot just starts.
Even Amy Goodman, who usually tries to get responses from people who might throw light on the situation ends up with platitudes that shed no light on why the riot happened. For example:
REV. JESSE JACKSON: Well, what happened last night was very disturbing. It was a expression of hopelessness and self-destructive violence, which diverts attention away from the real issues.
Or maybe it was because kids needed to get home or to jobs? Maybe some who lived too far to walk home were afraid they wouldn't get home that night? We aren't told. And, yes, poverty is a factor, because if those kids were rich, their parents could make some consequences happen. And, sure, hopelessness is a factor because if the kids believed the police were there to protect them, they probably could have talked the situation through. But the
reason kids started throwing things was possibly because they wanted the police to move out of the way and couldn't come up with a better way to do that.
We might even ask if the overreaction of the police to talk of The Purge was not yet another example of "fusion centers" detecting negligible to non-existent threats based on Internet rants. Remember: this has happened again and again in other contexts, and we should ask rather pointedly what exactly the police were responding to when they forced students off buses and blocked rapid transit, effectively penning the students in.
When we can't understand why events are happening, it's usually because we are missing vital context. Perhaps Brody and McLaughlin are wrong. But at least the action seems to make sense. When we can't make sense of events, it's usually because the reporter doesn't understand them--or is trying to sell a narrative that doesn't make sense.
For almost half a century, we've fought a "war on drugs," whose narrative never made sense. If it was all the fault of foreign drug lords, why were Americans buying the drugs? If addiction was the problem, why was there less and less treatment? We've been sold wars, tax policies, social policies, and other actions based again and again on narratives that were obviously false from the start. We complain about the gullibility of the Fox Noise crowd, but liberals often fail to be skeptical and sign onto mindless and simplistic "solutions" that don't solve anything.
In Baltimore and Ferguson and other places, law and order breaks down for a specific reason. We need to demand of journalism that it give us that reason, and not just a laundry list of shocking things that people said and did.
Again, I apologize if I have missed a diary that referenced this article. But based on the diaries and comments that I have read, the point made by Brody and McLaughlin--that the Baltimore police triggered the riots-- has not sunk in.
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Added: In comments, Kalil linked a fascinating diary by Jason Weixelbaum, who I believe is a graduate student with American University in the history department. Speaking about the day before the riots, he writes:
It seemed appropriate to protest yet another unjust death. It appears as though the April 26 march started fine and then devolved into violence as it approached the baseball stadium. Why? Because white attackers provoked the crowd.
[he provides photographic evidence]
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What did the police do when violence broke out? They attacked the protesters. Which then provoked a reaction against the police – who were, of course, the reason for the protest in the first place. News outlets reported property damage and violence to police vehicles, while mostly ignoring why this event occurred.
About the riots themselves, he says:
The day started with a “credible threat” to Baltimore Police, who claimed that local gangs had joined forces to attack them. This became an excuse to come out heavily armed and shut down public transit. Ironically, what had actually occurred was a truce between gangs to help keep the peace. You can watch an interview with some of the gang leaders involved discussing their plans to help create calm and unity here. Students at the predominantly black (and aptly named) Frederick Douglass high school had planned a walkout and a protest, and found themselves immediately beset by riot police and a lack of means of transportation to get home. The situation exploded.
This confirms Brody and McLaughlin.
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Added: Some people may not know about fusion centers and the mess they can make of law enforcement. The ACLU has a piece here and another here that discuss the general problems.
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Added: Regarding the causes of the riot, Chipmo in comments below links the following discussion panel and recommends we listen to
The Meghan Harris interview is at 35:00 or so. (0+ / 0-)
But Michaela Brown starts speaking at about 25:00, and I want people to listen to her as well.
Also, the interviews with Dew More Baltimore at 1:45:00 on are wonderful.
I haven't yet listened to it, but The Real News Network is often one of the only sources of real news, and I have never been disappointed with their work.