Baltimore – It was almost instinctive for Ray Kelly to jump to work when he heard about a group of high school students who collide with the police. He wanted to help protect children and rid things, but instead, a living witness burned.
Disorders Erupted After Freddy Gray died of wounds in the spine that lasted during the transportation of the police in April 2015, the protesters stormed the black majority West Paltimore, and the police cars were placed voters and looting. They were fighting generations of persecution that black Americans suffer from, from racist housing policies and deteriorating schools to limited job opportunities, rampant Weapon And bad living conditions.
Kelly, a community activist from the Graiz neighborhood, focused on the police accountable for years. When the Federal Investigators launched an investigation into the Baltimore Police Administration and the local prosecutors accused the officers concerned, he doubled in the call to the strongest supervision at a time when the national anger increased. Police brutality.
Ten years later, his ongoing efforts are made by Taymour – and his absence.
Among the positive changes, Kelly said, there are more mechanisms to address police misconduct and accountable officers. Killings and shooting are heading down after a long increase in the wake of Gray’s death. He said that while West Paltimore is still facing poverty and negligence, at least elected officials pay more attention.
“People should hear us, because there is now this possibility that we can organize and raise our voices,” Kelly said. “I think Freddy Gray’s death puts this in movement.”
But progress is often painfully slowly slow. Meanwhile, city leaders face new obstacles from the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on their civil rights and diversity initiatives.
For the Gray family, a decade has passed since it lost their own loss to national news.
He joined the mayor and other prominent figures on Saturday morning, his twin sister, Friedrika, put a wreath near his arrest, which represents the anniversary when he died in the hospital.
She said, “Justice for Freddy Gray,” said what has become a crowd’s cry in 2015. “Ten years so far.
The Timoor has a long history of abuse of its black population. In 1910, the city leaders enacted the first residential decree in the country that restricts American homeowners of African descent in certain blocs.
Kelly grew up during the peak of the cocaine epidemic in the eighties The National War on DrugsWhen the police routinely conducted “street scanning operations” or mass arrest in the west of Baltimore. When the sale of drugs began to support itself during high school, the police were just another obstacle in a really arduous battle. He later struggled with addiction and served time in prison.
After returning home in the early first decade of the twentieth century, Kelly began working with the neighborhood’s defense group to improve public safety. This is his position in a unique position when the US Department of Justice launched its investigation into the city’s police: Knowledge of the residents will be careful not to cooperate with federal investigators, helped Kelly to provide introductions and encourage people to participate.
“It was a gambling,” he said. “This was not what this society is really doing.”
But the gambling pushed. Investigation Long -term patterns revealed Of excessive force, illegal arrests and discriminatory police practices, especially against blacks.
The results resulted in the 2017 approval decree that imposes a series of reforms for the administration, which promised to reform and train its policies.
Since then, progress Shepherds along.
The agency celebrated this week when a federal judge finished the 17th approval decree after the full and continuous compliance – including the rules of transporting people in police trucks. Gray was caught, and he was transferred and transferred without the seat belt, as the officers have repeatedly ignored his invitations to medical attention.
Administration leaders say that the change on a large scale occurs, albeit overnight. The officers have increased foot patrols, low -level arrests decreased, and even undergoing Emotional organization training. They are less likely to use force when people are taken to reservations, and they have contributed to historical cuts to murders through partnership with service providers to address the root causes of armed violence.
Police Commissioner Richard Warley said that throughout his career, he saw the police culture that turns from “warriors to guardians.”
However, many Baltimore residents still trust the police to act with sympathy and integrity. They do not believe that the administration has undergone a major cultural change.
“It will take years and years to redefine the police department in the eyes of the community,” American boycott judge James Bridar said during the session of the approval decree on Thursday. “This work is very important, even if it does not lack immediately.”
Gray, 25, was arrested near his home in the Sand Town neighborhood in West Baltimore, a greased society once in a bad condition.
At its peak, the near Pennsylvania Street was a black entertainment area with famous jazz clubs, high -end shops and vibrant nightlife. Cultural artifacts include the childhood home in Thurgood Marshall, the first African American assigned to the Supreme Court, and a bronze statue of the jazz legend Billy Holiday, which was also rooted in West Baltimore.
The confluence of the factors contributed to its decline, including urban aviation and chronic investment. Some companies left after the turmoil after the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior in 1968.
Outdoor drug markets moved, and excessive work became a common complaint from the population. So when Gray was detained violently after the eye contacts with officers and escape, this long -term frustration was flooded. Officials responded to the 2015 protests by bringing the National Guard Maryland and imposing a curfew at the city level.
Several population celebrated when the prosecutors were later Criminal charges were announced Against the six officers concerned, but none of them were convicted.
Meanwhile, political leaders visited Sandown and pledged to invest in housing, youth programs and more. These great promises have largely failed to achieve them.
Kelly said, staring at the street outside the previous church, which includes the Dawa Organization, the police project. “We have heard a lot of conversation, but this is what we see.”
When the city closed the entertainment center in the neighborhood in 2021, Sandown’s youth did not leave mainly anywhere, said Riheen Watson, 17, whose childhood was revealed under Gray’s death.
“The case was, nothing is good to come to our community,” he said. “But when you start as a successor, there is no place to go to it.”
The second Trump administration is likely to create more challenges for societies such as Sand Town, as federal initiatives in the White House are cut off federal initiatives aimed at progressing racist stocks.
Baltimore Billy Murphy, who represented the gray family, said that while blacks continue to fight for their collective future, the return of white excellence affects national policy.
“Where are we today? This is where we are,” Murphy said in an event that celebrates the death of Gray. “We are heading back.”
But at least at the local level, the political discourse now includes more progressive black voices. In his opinion, Gray’s death was a turning point.
Loew said: “This has advanced our ability to defend unaware of blacks in ways before the uprising.”
Mayor Brandon Scott says his administration has been achieving a long time ago by investing in the historically neglected neighborhoods, including a $ 15 million plan to renew the entertainment center in Sandtown and promotions to Gilmor Homes, the General Housing Complex where Gray was arrested.
However, Scott said in an interview, “We do not celebrate here, because the work is incomplete.”
For Kelly, policy discussions and point of progress are often missed by failing to recognize the Gray himself, the young man from West Baltimore who died after a tragic meeting with the police a decade ago.
Instead of marking the anniversary of his death, Kelly suggested that his birthday may be the one to be celebrated: August 16, 1989.