Free Republic

It took only minutes for stores in Baltimore to be destroyed on the night of April 27. But six weeks later, the repair process is still limping along. And stores not directly affected by the violence say they've also seen a sharp decline in business. "Look outside, there's nobody," says Pedro Silva, owner of Carolina's Tex-Mex Restaurant in Fells Point, a usually busy tourist spot. "Before, we used to be no parking space. Now it's empty. It's empty — day, night." Silva says that since the riots, business at the restaurant has been cut in half. At lunchtime last week,...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — As police battle crime, they’re also trying to restore public trust and confidence in the department. That’s why they kicked off a new training program to make sure their officers are operating within the law. This is all part of the reform that the police commissioner vowed to bring to the department. That’s why all of the more than 2,800 officers on the force are now being re-schooled on the law. When police can and can’t legally stop people is part of new training that all officers in the department–even senior commanders–are now required to undergo. Law...

Several dozen people gathered in the basement of a Mount Vernon church on Saturday afternoon to vent frustrations with police brutality in Baltimore and beyond. "The answers are not going to come from City Hall," the Rev. Cortly "C.D." Witherspoon told the crowd at New Unity Church. The event at New Unity was billed as a "Baltimore Tribunal and Peoples Assembly" to stop "police terror." It drew a mix of white and black Baltimore residents, as well as activists from New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles and North Carolina, many of them affiliated with the Peoples Power Assembly, which sponsored...

A fifth member of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's Office on Criminal Justice is leaving the agency, city officials confirmed. Amy Hartman, who led city efforts to increase public safety in the southeast neighborhood of McElderry Park, has submitted her resignation — meaning nearly a third of the 16-member office is departing amid the recent surge in violence.

BALTIMORE - (WJZ) -Dozens of murders and shootings in the month of May alone. Now, the Baltimore City Police Department is trying to hunt down the people pulling the trigger. Police say they have all hands on deck trying to catch the people responsible for this violent streak, but experts say it’s a problem that won’t be solved quickly. Police continue their hunt for suspects– arresting 10 people and have open warrants on 11 more. But just how difficult is it for the police to go after that many gunmen? It’s a daunting task. The police commissioner has requested federal...

BALTIMORE - The leadership of Baltimore’s police union is seeking all communications between the department’s command staff and City Hall executives as they investigate the handling of the recent riots and unrest. Lt. Gene Ryan, president of FOP Lodge #3, said the union filed a Freedom of Information Act for all departmental communication tapes, command staff text messages and emails from April 27 to May 4. That request was made on May 29, Ryan said, and he has not received any response as of Wednesday. Ryan added that these moves are part of the union conducting an “After Action Review”...

... f State, County and Municipal Employees in response to the civil unrest in late April and early May after the death of Freddie Gray from injuries suffered in police custody. The organizers targeted the neighborhoods of West Baltimore, where Gray was arrested. AFSCME Maryland has done voter registration efforts before, but the unrest "put it into hyperdrive," said Patrick Moran, president of the union group. On Saturday, the ASFSCME members had more luck elsewhere, registering 22 new voters. One of them was 18-year-old Brandi Womack, who was set to graduate from Carver Vocational-Technical High on Sunday. Womack, whose mother,...

The U.S. Small Business Administration on Friday announced it would make up to $1 million available in loans and other forms of assistance for small businesses in Baltimore in the wake of rioting and unrest. The city has estimated that some 380 businesses were damaged in the civil unrest from April 25 and May 3. Rawlings-Blake said that while most have reopened, some are still "not at full capacity." The mayor said the SBA designated the additional funding upon her request. Officials said the assistance includes up to $800,000 for "microloans" to small businesses, and grants of $100,000 apiece to...

BALTIMORE - A woman and a boy were fatally shot Thursday morning in southwest Baltimore. City police said officers were called around 8:19 a.m. to the 100 block of Upmanor Road, where a 31-year-old woman and a young boy believed to be around 8 years old had been shot in the head. Anyone with information about the shootings is asked to call police at 410-396-2100.

BALTIMORE — Antoinette Perrine has barricaded her front door since her brother was killed three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. She already has iron bars outside her windows and added metal slabs on the inside to deflect the gunfire. “I’m afraid to go outside,” said Perrine, 47. “It’s so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside. People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They’re nowhere.” West Baltimore residents worry they’ve...

Baltimore City state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby has pushed back against claims that she is biased against the six officers charged in the Freddie Gray case, but the 35-year-old rookie prosecutor’s social media activity suggests there is some truth to the accusations. On May 6, Mosby favorited a tweet calling the six charged officers “thugs.” On the same day, Mosby endorsed another controversial tweet, this one with racial overtones. By endorsing a tweet labeling the officers as “thugs,” Mosby undermines a defense she made on behalf of the rioters and looters who descended on Baltimore last month.

The National Spelling Bee preliminary round is being held today, and its officials are confronting the racism that has accompanied it in recent years. Indian American children have won the spelling bee for seven straight years and 11 of the last 15. Paige Kimble, the Bee’s director, addressed the question last week, partly because of the racially charged tweets that have grown to accompany the spelling bee. “We certainly followed the coverage last year,” Kimble said, “and we are aware of Twitter posts that are not nice, that indicate that we have a long way to go as a country...

As author Michael Scheuer stated, the Democratic Party is the party of the four S's: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism. Clearly, then, it is the Democratic Party that owes black Americans an apology – not the Republican Party, nor the United States of America. The time is long overdue for the Democratic Party to apologize for that party’s 150-year history of racism and cease hiding behind the curtain of Congress, issuing unwarranted apologies on behalf of America, while simultaneously using racial politics for partisan political gain. Only then can we finally end the racial divisiveness that has torn our...

DALLAS — What do "black hole," "angel food cake," and "devil's food cake" have in common? They're all racist terms, says a Dallas County, Texas, official. A county commissioners' meeting this week over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county's collections office was like a certain astronomical phenomenon. "It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole," Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting. One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable. At...

WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush on Monday defended his decision not to attend the NAACP's 93rd annual convention being held in Texas this week during an afternoon news conference with White House reporters. The president was in the midst of answering questions, when Dallas Morning News reporter Bob Hillman asked the president to respond to criticism that he has not attended a NAACP convention since his election and that his administration's civil rights record was not considered stellar. Bush paused briefly and with a slight smile, answered Hillman's question. "Let's see. There I was, sitting around...