After a night of violence and looting peaceful protest has returned to the city of Baltimore. Demonstrations and protests are being carefully watched by 2,000 National Guard troops and 1,000 police officers trying to keep things calm. There is a 10pm curfew in place. Protests have been continuing daily since April 19th when a black man died in custody. There are still street battles and arson going on right now. 200 people were arrested and and over 100 cars were set on fire along with 15 buildings destroyed. Rioting came after Freddie Gray (a black man) was fatally injured while in custody. Some people think that they are taking advantage of the special situation to do things normally not allowed at all.I neither agree or completely disagree with these protests. I think that the Black population is overreacting. I was not able to find any info about death in custody but I did find statistics related to arrest related deaths. The information said that 61.5% was by Homicide (Killed by someone else). This would most likely show that deaths are most likely from the police themselves. The interesting part for me was that the characteristics specified that most deaths were from White (42.1%), Male (95.4%), and from an age of about 25 to 34 (28.9%). So the graph and the math say that most police deaths are from young-ish white dudes. I am fairly certain (unless I am don't pay attention at all) that there aren't many anti-police protests about the Hispanic guy killed or the White guy killed. Only the Black guys. That's all I have to say about that.
This relates to AP-Gov because is shows the Judicial process and also the Executive power to call the National Guard (militia) and the Executive responsibility to enforce the law.
Link to Statistics done by the Department of Justice
I think you are right. You only ever hear about the Blacks that are calling out "racism" or having a problem with the police attacks. Good post!
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that no arrests or deaths are race related but every single time someone black dies because of the police there are riots in the street and I don't think that the African American community understands that the Police's job is to protect everyone.
DeleteThis is also how silly our country feels that they have the right to protest violently over one man's death, but there were no violent protests over Sandy Hook shooting.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it's always bad when any member of a community dies, this doesn't give the people in Baltimore a right to protest violently. I don't understand the thought process of "One guy died, so let's burn down 100 cars and 15 buildings (One of which im pretty sure was a retirement home, that's sick to mess with old people)! I think that they're overreacting, and im not saying Black lives dont matter, but you ONLY hear about these cases where a black guy is shot, hardly ever do you hear a white man shot by a black cop.
ReplyDeleteI liked your post this week, Jack. I agree that we only hear about the deaths of minorities, but that isn't all we have. I do believe you could have worded your point better, though.
ReplyDeleteI see where you are coming from in your story. I do understand where you stand on the issue and I agree with the fact that the public inflates much more over the death of a minority instead of like the cinema shooting, nobody protested against the cinema in Colorado. Good post.
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