Protest hits killer guards
Community demands 'Justice for Raymond Smoot'
By
Sharon Black
Baltimore
Published May 26, 2005 1:16 AM
The recent death in custody
of Raymond Smoot at the hands of prison guards in Baltimore’s notorious
Central Booking facility has aroused strong protests, especially from the
African American community.
Smoot, a Black man in his early 50s, had been
arrested May 3 for failing to appear in court on a prior charge. On May 14,
still jailed because he didn’t have $150 to buy a bail bond, he was
brutally beaten by guards at Central Booking. He later died in the hospital.
Smoot’s death was ruled a homicide.
Smoot’s family, who said
they intended to bail out the victim on May 16, has demanded a thorough
investigation of his death. Delvonna Smoot, the victim’s niece, said her
uncle’s face was bruised and bloody. “The doctors said they’ve
never seen another human being beat somebody as bad as they beat my uncle,
never,” she said.
State Senator Verna Jones called for a task force
to investigate the jail. She said that 27 inmates have died at Central Booking
since 2002, and that Smoot’s death “illustrates a system that is
overwhelmed and broken.”
Central Booking, which is run by the state
of Maryland, was built in 1995 with a capacity of processing 45,000 people a
year. In 2004, some 100,000 people were processed there. Cells built to hold
five to eight people often hold 18. In April, a judge ruled that people held
longer than 24 hours should be set free.
Because of the scandal around
Central Booking, the brutality of Smoot’s killing, and the response from
community organizations, including the Baltimore NAACP, the story made national
news. It also sparked a mass response to the daily police repression that has
become part of everyday life in Baltimore.
Everyone is aware the police
have arrest quotas. They stop vehicles at random in the Black community,
insisting people show ID. Many compare the situation to South Africa during its
apartheid days. And everyone can see the lines of people outside Central Booking
waiting hours to be processed.
On May 20, some 150 people from the
community came to a news conference outside the prison called by the Baltimore
All-Peoples Congress. Most had heard of the event by word of mouth. The NAACP,
the Nation of Islam and most local politicians elected to represent the Black
community were there, as were the television and print media.
The Smoot
family attended, along with many of their neighbors. They repeated their charges
against the guards at Central Booking.
On May 24, the Rev. Willie Ray, the
Smoot family’s minister, held a vigil. Sixty people attended, including
Millie Reves, whose sister died in Central Booking six weeks earlier after being
denied medical care. She came to show solidarity with the Smoot family and to
join in their demands.
Andre Powell from the State, County and Municipal
Employees union and the All-Peoples Congress, spoke at the May 24 vigil. He
denounced the police as “nothing but hired guns for the banks” while
pointing to Baltimore’s downtown skyline.
“The prisons are
concentration camps for the poor,” Powell explained. He called for
“medical treatment, not incarceration.”
Renee Washington,
whose fiancé was murdered by police five years ago, was loudly applauded
when she said: “We must end the police practice of ‘zero
tolerance.’ Their quota system must go.”
Longtime Baltimore
organizers say the surprisingly strong community response may indicate a general
growth in resistance, not only to police abuses, but to budget cuts, utility
cutoffs, unemployment and low wages that have pummeled Baltimore
residents.
At the vigil, Eric Easton of the All-Peoples Congress called
for a June 14 demon stration at Central Booking. Further actions will be
discussed at a community meeting on May 26 at the All-Peoples Congress Hall, 426
E. 31st Street.
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