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Pickets demand justice for Smoot

Published Aug 6, 2005 8:41 PM

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy was picketed by two dozen people when she attended a fund-raiser and birthday party at the Baltimore Rowing Club on July 31.

Family members, supporters and community activists were protesting and demanding that Jessamy indict the prison guards who killed Raymond Smoot on May 14 in the notorious central booking facility in Baltimore. Over 30 inmates have died there over the last two years because of the deplorable conditions at the prison.

The Emergency Coalition for Justice called the protest and has been spearheading efforts to bring justice for the victims of central booking, along with the victims of police brutality.

On May 14 Raymond Smoot was brutally beaten by prison guards at the central intake prison. Eyewitnesses say the beating was done by over 25 prison guards. It has now been almost three months since the killing of Smoot and no murder indictments—no indictments of any kind—have come down on any of the prison guards.

Andre Powell, an organizer with the Emergency Coali tion, says that “the community will not lie down and watch as poor and working people are arrested and thrown in jail because of the ‘zero-tolerance’ policies of the mayor and police department.” Powell adds that the coalition, along with Smoot’s family, will be holding monthly vigils in front of Central Booking every 14th of the month, the date of his murder.

—Steven Ceci