Baltimore victims of police abuse speak out
By WW Baltimore bureau
Protesters took to the Baltimore streets for a
"march for justice" April 4 to commemorate the life of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. and to mark his assassination.
The sponsoring coalition included the All Peoples Congress,
Concerned Citizens for Police Accountability and Review, the
Local Organizing Committee of the Million Man March and Unity
for Action.
The protest gathered at Lexington Market, the location of
the recent brutal police murder of James Quarles. The shooting
was captured on video and played by news programs
nationwide.
At a brief rally, Unity in Action co-chair Bill Goodin and
All Peoples Congress organizer Andre Powell addressed those
gathered.
Then demonstrators took over city streets and marched to the
central headquarters of the Baltimore City police department.
Those who have been victimized by police violence and surviving
family members then spoke out against the injustices.
The mother of 22-year-old Preston Barnes, who was shot to
death by police several years ago, expressed her solidarity
with other victims.
A young woman from East Baltimore testified that she was
brutally framed up by police on phony drug charges.
Daniel Harris, his toddler son on his shoulders, described
how he was beat en and tortured by police when he was a
graduate student at Johns Hopkins.
Rally co-chair Andre Powell paid tribute to one of the
marchers-the mother of Tyrone X Gilliam. Gilliam is awaiting
execution on Maryland's' death row. Powell called for an end to
the racist death penalty.
Maggie Faunteroy, an organizer of the April 4 protest,
recounted several stories of police assaults on school children
and youth. She then introduced Philip King and his daughters.
Members of the King family described how police broke into
their home, cavity-searched the two young girls and vandalized
their possessions in a mistaken drug raid.
'Power to the people!'
State delegates Salima Marriott and Clarence Mitchell
expressed their solidarity at the rally. Marriott said that as
a mother she also felt the fear that her son could be killed by
police.
Craig Newman, chief steward representing AFSCME Local 1072,
told those gathered that his union was founded by underpaid
housekeepers who taught all the members the importance of
fighting racism.
Newman described his union's participation in a recent
anti-Klan protest. He was cheered when he concluded that the
police and the Klan "just wore different robes."
Representatives from a host of organizations also spoke or
were visibly present, including the African Peoples Socialist
Party, the Black Panther Party, Workers World Party, All
African Revolutionary Peoples Party, Nation of Islam and the
Baltimore Emergency Response Network.
Bill Goodin summarized the feelings of the protesters when
he proclaimed, "We are serving notice to the Baltimore City
police department that we won't take it anymore. We say power
to the people!"
The groups announced plans to continue with the fight
against police killings and abuse. They are pressing for the
indictment of the police involved in the killing of James
Quarles and are launching a "grassroots campaign to win a
civilian review board independent of the police with subpoena
powers."
This article is copyright under a Creative
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