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Community activists protest at courthouse

Published Feb 24, 2011 9:22 PM

Protest against racist attack in Baltimore.
Photo: William Hughes

On the morning of Feb. 16 a protest was held outside the court hearing of two brothers who brutally attacked a 15-year-old African American student on Nov. 19, 2010, as he was walking from school to his grandmother’s house. The two brothers, Avi and Eliyahu Werdesheim, are members of a Zionist vigilante group called Shomrim. When they were patrolling the neighborhood and came across the student, they told him he didn’t belong in that neighborhood and proceeded to beat him up.

Adding insult to injury, newly elected Baltimore City State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein reduced felony charges against the two brothers to minor misdemeanors. This insulting lowering of charges has led many people in the Black community to call for Bernstein’s resignation.

The protest was lively, with participants loudly chanting “No justice, no peace!,” “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” and “Hey hey, ho ho, Gregg Bernstein has got to go!” The organizers of the protest are demanding the Shomrim be disbanded; full prosecution of the two brothers, including hate crime charges; and resources for neighborhoods that have too long been neglected.

The protest was called by the All Peoples Congress, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Baltimore Chapter, the Baltimore Black Think Tank, and longtime community activist Leo Burroughs. Students from Morgan State University and Baltimore City Community College participated in the protest and affirmed that they will participate and organize more students to come out for the trial date of May 2.