May 11 — Close to 500 people have been arrested here since the rebellion that began on April 25 after the killing of Freddie Grey, yet another young Black man who has died at the hands of the police. Some 33 of those arrested remain in jail. Some were brutally beaten and pepper-sprayed by police even as television cameras caught the action. Those still being held are in central booking or at a nearby juvenile facility, without due process. They were denied their right to see a court commissioner within the 24-hour period previously required. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan provided an excuse for this delay by proclaiming a “state of emergency,” which also authorized deployment of the National Guard. The governor has never even considered declaring a state of emergency over Baltimore’s extreme poverty, unemployment and decaying schools and homes in the Black community. These unbearable conditions are what underlie the struggle in a major city that has been stripped of its once plentiful industrial jobs. Those arrested included Baltimore youth, journalists, medics and legal observers. Allen Bullock’s parents urged him to turn himself in after he was pictured in a news media photo allegedly breaking a police cruiser’s windows. […]
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