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Baltimore Riots Get Violent

Marilyn Mosby baltimore riots

America is facing another unfortunate outcry from a community responding to the death of a black man from a police officers. Riots, looting, violence, destruction, protests and civil unrest have shaken Baltimore, Maryland, closing businesses, schools, and sporting events following the death and funeral of Freddie Gray.

Police and the National Guard are doing all they can to control the chaos in the Baltimore riots. Maryland Governor, Larry Hogan, declared the city in a state of emergency. Firefighters dealt with 15 burning buildings and 144 vehicles. Police officers arrested over 235 people while over twenty officers have been injured trying to protect the city and the people.

President Obama addressed the situation by saying “there’s no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday.” The behavior, violence and looting, he stated, were not acts of protest, saying, “It’s people – a handful of people taking advantage of a situation for their own purposes, and they need to be treated as criminals.”

I have to agree with him. Looting and violence have no place in protesting. Those people committing those acts are not thinking of the victim. They are not trying to make a statement. They are criminals who found an excuse to commit crimes for their own agenda. These acts are completely counter-productive to a protest and only make the situation worse in the short-term and the long-term.

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the Mayor of Baltimore, issued a curfew for the rest of the week while Police and National Guard continue to patrol the streets and residents begin cleaning and picking up the pieces of their broken community. Let’s hope peaceful resolve can come immediately and Baltimore, as well as America, can find a way to recover from these shootings that did not need to occur in the first place.