The Rev. Jamal Bryant, Baltimore’s most prominent civil rights activist seems to be holding Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake to the fire with her lack of urgency regarding the latest victim of a police involved death. this time, Mr. Freddie Gray died after a spinal injury he endured by the hands of Baltimore police officers.
“Where’s the accountability?” he asked in an interview. “We didn’t hear the outrage from her when the man was in a coma. We hear the sadness and disappointment upon his death. It felt like a politician was talking — that this is politically correct and I think that’s the sentiment in the street.”
“She’s stuck in the Cirque du Soleil trying to do a balancing act,” he said. “She’s going to lose some political capital from the electorate. The good choice is to have six police officers arrested. There seems to be a cloak of protection extended to the police that’s not extended to the citizens.”
But Reverend Bryant isn’t the only black leader speaking out. A large number of Leaders faulting the Mayor for remaining too quite too long noting that she said nothing while he layed in a coma for more than one week and once he died and a video surfaced that showed officers appearing to drag him to a police van, did she step up.
black leaders fault the mayor for remaining too quiet while Gray was in a coma for more than a week, and only took more public stance once he died and video surfaced that showed officers appearing to drag him to a police van.
“Blacks are saying, ‘You’re doing too little,’ ” said Carl Stokes, a Baltimore City Council member who is African American. “You need to be screaming about this. If we are calm, something is wrong with our psyche and our acceptance of this.”