Rally for Anthony Anderson
BALTIMORE, MD -- While a Texas inmate was being executed yesterday thousands of miles away, angry protestors took to the streets of East Baltimore to protest the suspected officer-related killing of Anthony Anderson last week, which has left an entire family mourning and residents calling for answers.
As family members, community residents and witnesses of last week’s fatal incident gathered in the vacant lot that was the place Mr. Anderson took his last breath, leaders of yesterday’s organized rally and press conference stepped up their criticisms of what they describe as a ‘police department gone wild’. Cortly ‘C.D.’ Witherspoon, President of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said that it seems as if Baltimore is slowly becoming more and more like the Wild, Wild West; and described the multiple officer-related shootings and police brutality cases his group has been investigating as pathetic. “These people are sworn to ‘protect and serve’ the interests of residents, not to over-aggressively take the lives of individuals who are no threat to them whatsoever,” said the 30-year old pastor and activist.
Calling for answers into a case that has police backpedalling from their initial statement as to what happened, Witherspoon and All People’s Congress leader Sharon Black, are fed up with the constant calls they receive about police brutality throughout the city. Family members of Anderson’s - who was initially said to have ingested an unknown quantity of narcotics in which he choked on causing his death during a ‘routine drug arrest’ on Friday evening - are now awaiting a full autopsy report on his death after an initial medical evaluation determined that he had in fact not choked off of any related substance. Examiners of Anderson have said that he had suffered multiple injuries, including at least one broken bone; which speaks to witnesses accounts that Anderson was beaten and slammed by the plain-clothes Baltimore City Police officers known as ‘knockers’.
“He was no angel but ‘Ant’ [Anthony Anderson] was not doing nothing but minding his own business when these officers came up on him from behind, after jumping out their vehicles; slammed him to the ground and forcibly searched his pockets,” says one eyewitness, who declined to give their name based on fear of backlash. “They claimed that they saw him swallow something, and ordered him to spit it out; yet, when he didn’t – because he had nothing to spit out – they preceded to semi-choke him in a heimlich maneuver attempt to have him throw up his contents. Which ain’t nothing new, as they do that [explicit] all the time in the hood?”
And while questions remain to linger regarding this case, shootings, especially officer-related shootings, continue to increase around the city. Speaking with two ‘Mother’s on the Move’ Monday evening, Chris Brown and Darlene Cain, who both lost their son’s lives at the hands of Baltimore area police officers; issues were addressed that speaks to the core problems many area residents are facing when dealing with the police department. Even as Delegate Jill Carter offered some insightful and progressive legislative policies she plans to introduce in January during the next General Assembly session, the concerns of the majority of blacks in Baltimore have escalated from timid to fearful, leaving Carter’s office flooded with calls and emails calling for answers.
“I think that we’ve become numb to life and death issues in our community, and to police brutality which seems to have become a regular occurrence in many neighborhoods; even police misconduct happens so frequently in Baltimore - from the car towing scandal, dope dealing officer and others – that we almost see it as a norm which is crazy,” said the 41st district delegate during a television appearance on the Reporters’ Roundtable. “To have your child taken from you at the hands of a police officer is inexcusable and should not be tolerated by any means! And while we came in droves to lift up Trayvon Martin, we witness incidents like this right here at home on a regular basis and we need to start doing more to uplift our own communities.”
And while the president of the city’s police union remains ‘confident that the investigation into the Anderson case will show that the officers did not violate any criminal statutes’, as he does with almost every case involving one of his own, regardless of the evidence against them; Delegate Carter feels elected officials need to take a harder look at the practices used by the police department, and the psychological evaluations of each officer on an ongoing and regular basis. “These young men could have been the next Ray Rice or the next Ray Lewis, and contrary to popular belief amongst many of these officers, their life had value; and there should never be a shoot first mentality, as the authorization of deadly force should only be used when the officers life is in imminent danger” – and clearly that is not the case these days?
Baltimore’s homicide rate has spiked over the past few weeks, starting with the deadly Labor Day weekend when sixteen reported shootings resulted in six homicides, and officer-related shootings have surpassed last year’s number already with at least 12-shootings and nine fatalities; and the question on everyone’s mind is – when is enough, enough? When will the Mayor and the members of the City Council and City Delegation step up and call on added resources or criminal investigations into these matters? With the new police commissioner being sworn in yesterday, with two of his top four commanders absent based on retirement and ‘indefinite medical leave’; what will this outsider do to quell the fear amongst area residents who are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and want to reclaim their neighborhoods?
We have yet to hear almost any city ‘elected leader’ speak out against this recent rash of violence or the rising police-related homicides, as they seem to be too busy frolicking in North Carolina for a party convention and more concerned about getting people out to vote for President Obama this fall? Well, we can’t vote if we’re not alive on November 6th?
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