[Baltimore Under Fire] Looting and Fires Engulf the City in Wake of Freddie Gray's Death!

A very similar scene in Baltimore as that in Ferguson after the no indictment decision was made in the case of  Michael Brown. Here we are again, Freddie Gray, another black man dies in police custody.

According to CNN:

Gray was arrested on a weapons charge in a high-crime area of Baltimore known for drugs. He "gave up without the use of force," according to Baltimore Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez.
An officer apparently took his Taser out and was prepared to use it on Gray, but he never deployed it, Rodriguez said. And none of the six officers involved in the arrest describe using force against the 25-year-old.
Gray was placed inside a police van and was able to talk, said Rodriguez, who described Gray as upset.
Gray was taken into custody a week before he died of a spinal injury.
"And when Mr. Gray was taken out of that van, he could not talk, and he could not breathe," according to Rodriguez.
It's unknown what caused the spinal cord injury that led to his death a week after the arrest, and it's also unknown what, if anything, happened inside the van.

Court documents allege that Baltimore Police Department Officer Garrett Miller arrested Gray after finding a switchblade in his pocket. The Gray family attorney called the allegation a "sideshow." Gray was carrying a "pocket knife of legal size," attorney William Murphy told CNN.
Police never saw the knife and chased Gray only after he ran from them, the attorney said.
The court documents also say that Gray "fled unprovoked upon noticing police presence."
"The officer noticed a knife clipped to the inside of his front right pants pocket. The defendant was arrested without force or incident," the documents say. "The knife was recovered by this officer and found to be a spring-assisted, one-hand-operated knife."
Maryland law makes it illegal to "wear or carry a dangerous weapon of any kind" -- including switchblades -- "concealed on or about the person."
It's not clear that simply having a knife is a crime, said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. "It is not necessarily probable cause to chase someone. So, we still have questions," she said.

Segments of cell phone video shot from two different positions appear to begin after Gray has been arrested and show officers dragging Gray, who is handcuffed, to a van. He can be heard screaming.
"He was dragged a bit," said Rawlings-Blake, "but then you see him using his legs to get into the van, so he was able-bodied when he was in the van. And we know that when he was finally taken out of the van, he was unresponsive."
Officers placed more restraints on Gray inside the van, police said, while surveillance video recorded him conscious and talking. That was at 8:54 a.m.
At 9:24 a.m., police called an ambulance for Gray. Police say Gray requested medical attention, including an inhaler, and an ambulance later took him to the University of Maryland Medical Center's Shock Trauma Center.
Baltimore's mayor, for one, thinks the arresting officers made "a mistake" by not requesting medical attention immediately after Gray asked for it.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake thinks police made a mistake by not requesting medical help sooner.
What we don't know: It's unknown why Gray screamed, and the video doesn't capture the entire incident, start to end. It's unclear what happened between 8:54 a.m. and 9:24 a.m. And it's unclear why police didn't call for an ambulance sooner.

Freddie Gray was laid to rest and the city was turned upside down in protest and riots. People throwing bricks and rocks at the police and the police fighting back. So far several police officers have been injured and a State of Emergency has been declared for the city of Baltimore. Curfews have also been enforced.

Streets in Baltimore looked like a war zone Tuesday morning after a night of riots, fires and heartbreak.
"Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs who -- in a very senseless way -- are trying to tear down what so many have fought for," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said.
Buildings and cars across the city were engulfed in flames. About a dozen businesses were looted or damaged. At least 15 officers were wounded, six of them seriously, the police commissioner said.
All this came just hours after the funeral for Freddie Gray, who died of a severe spinal cord injury while in police custody.
The destruction across Baltimore brought more agony to the grieving family.
"I want y'all to get justice for my son, but don't do it like this here," Gray's mother, Gloria Darden, pleaded Monday night.
Gray's twin sister, Fredericka, said the chaos was no way to honor her brother.
"I don't think that's for Freddie," she said. "I think the violence is wrong."
The destruction was so bad that children can't go to school Tuesday. Baltimore City Public Schools canceled classes for the day.

Here are a few pics of the aftermath. You can check the full gallery over at CNN! Please keep Baltimore in your prayers!!!!

 

Strange Fruit: Black Man Found Hanging from a Tree in Mississippi

So how sick is this? Like a page of out the 1960s in Mississippi a black man is hanging from a tree. 

If this isn't ridiculous I don't know what is? 

CNN Reports:

The hanging death of an African-American man who had been missing since early this month and was found Thursday by local authorities in Mississippi has drawn the scrutiny of the FBI and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
The sheriff's office in Claiborne County, Mississippi, had organized a search for the man, who had been missing since March 2 and was reported missing March 8. Authorities said the man's body was found with a bed sheet tied around his neck and a skull cap on his head, hanging from a tree. The man's hands were not tied up.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jason Pack said that it's unclear how the man died, and "it is too early to say what happened and speculate."
"We don't know what happened out there, if it is a suicide, a homicide, that is why we investigate these types of cases to determine exactly what happened," he told CNN affiliate WAPT.
Law enforcement believes that Otis Byrd is the man found hanging in Mississippi.
The FBI and Mississppi Bureau of Investigations have not released the man's name, but a law enforcement official said he's believed to be 54-year-old Otis Byrd, and both the Claiborne County chapter of the NAACP and family members have confirmed his identity.
The body was found hanging from a tree 500 yards southwest of a house belonging to Byrd's family.
According to a family member who did not want to be identified, Byrd was a "good, hard-working man" who had held various jobs, including on an oil rig, since his release from prison. The family member acknowledged that he served time in prison for murder, but said had been upstanding citizen since his release.
He was churchgoer who occasionally went to the casino, the family member said.
Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas said, however, that though the family believed it was Byrd, they hadn't been allowed near the crime scene.
The body of Otis Byrd was found 500 yards from a house belonging to his family.
The sheriff told CNN affiliate WAPT that he had instructed the Fish and Wildlife search and rescue team to search the part of the woods where the man was found, and "they found a deceased person."
"This is the first time I have witnessed anything like this in Claiborne County," he said.
According to the Mississippi Department of Corrections, Byrd was convicted in 1980 for murdering a woman. He was paroled in 2006.
At this point there are two parallel investigations: one by local authorities into the death, and one by the FBI into whether there may be any federal civil rights violations. The FBI has a forensics team on the scene in Mississippi in part because the bureau has responsibility for federal civil rights law.
The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi are also investigating the death, according to a spokeswoman for the Justice Department.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is also on the scene, according to a statement from the FBI.
"Earlier in the day, the Claiborne County Sheriffs Department and the Mississippi Wildlife Fisheries and Parks conducted a ground search for a man who had been missing since early March. Officers located a man hanging in the woods near Roddy Road a half mile from his last known residence," according to the FBI statement.
"The sheriff's department contacted the MBI and FBI for forensic and investigative assistance. Investigators are currently processing the scene for evidence to determine the cause and manner of death​," according to the FBI.
The state NAACP is calling for a full investigation into the death.
"Considering Mr. Byrd's body was found hanging from a tree, we are calling on federal authorities to immediately investigate to determine whether his death is a result of a racial hate crime," stated Derrick Johnson, state president Mississippi NAACP.

Suicide or murder? Hmmm
Looking forward to these results.

#HowToGetAwayWithMurder N.Y. cop not indicted in chokehold death!!!

Cnn Reports:

A grand jury decided against an indictment Wednesday in the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, who died after white police officer Daniel Pantaleo put him in a chokehold, according to two law enforcement officials.
During his fatal police encounter, Garner raised both hands in the air and told the officers not to touch him. Seconds later, a video shows an officer behind him grab him in a chokehold and pull him to the sidewalk, rolling him onto his stomach.
"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" Garner said repeatedly, his cries muffled into the pavement.
The cause of Garner's death was "compression of neck (chokehold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police," the medical examiner's office has said. The death was ruled a homicide.

No surprise there either. The decision comes as another blow a week after the grand jury in Ferguson came to the same conclusion in the Michael Brown case. #nowords


#CrimingWhileWhite:

CNN asks"Do white people get away with more crimes? #CrimingWhileWhite says yes" in a new article after trending topic set twitter on fire last night!

Very very interesting trend going on right now. White people that have gotten away with crimes from shoplifting, DWI, even as far as assaulting an officer tweeting their experiences with the police and how they weren't even arrested. #nosurprisethere You can read the full article about #crimingwhilewhite at CNN, however check out some of these tweets:

No Indictment in Ferguson causes #Mayhem

Live from Ferguson Missouri I present to you The Purge Anarchy!!!! #whoa

If you've been watching CNN, like I have, since the Grand Jury announcement last night  you have seen the images of the city in disarray. Looking like scenes right from a movie, Ferguson citizens took matters into their own hands after the decision was made not to indict Darren Wilson. The police officer shot and killed an unarmed teen Michael Brown back in August this year. While I don't condone violence and rioting is NOT the way I can't say that I don't feel the pain of Ferguson's people. I FEEL YOU! #blacklivesmatter #whatjustice

The Brown Family's Official Statement:

We are profoundly disappointed that the killer of our child will not face the consequence of his actions.
While we understand that many others share our pain, we ask that you channel your frustration in ways that will make a positive change. We need to work together to fix the system that allowed this to happen.
Join with us in our campaign to ensure that every police officer working the streets in this country wears a body camera.
We respectfully ask that you please keep your protests peaceful. Answering violence with violence is not the appropriate reaction.
Let's not just make noise, let's make a difference.

Although I am not surprised by the Grand Jury's decision, I still held on to hope. Hope that another black life lost wasn't in vain. You kind of got the feeling from the delays to prepare the city for the presss conference that it wouldn't end well. Not to mention all the police, national guards and FBI called onto the scene "in case" the people decided to #turnup.  I believe they knew what the verdict was and had to delay it's announcement to get Officer Williams and his family out of dodge. #ontheruntour #comingsoon #backtosquare1 #thepurge

Take a look of the chilling aftermath below:

Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) -- This is what Ferguson looked like Tuesday morning.

Shattered glass from looted stores covered the asphalt. Shell casings from unknown shooters littered the ground. And more than a dozen buildings, including stores owned by local residents, had been set ablaze.

As protesters hurled bottles, batteries and rocks at police, officers in riot gear responded by shooting bean bags and tear gas.

"This ain't Iraq. This is the United States," Demetric Whitlock yelled to a line of police officers on South Florissant Road, in front of the Ferguson Police Department.

How do you feel about the Grand Jury's decision?