'I'm so sorry': Pugh apologizes in video ahead of sentencing Share Shares Copy Link Copy

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first. I just want to apologize to citizens. Two young people to partners. We're friends. Everyone of offended. Everyone have hurt and city's image all right, being guilty and are being involved in all this. That has led me first. I just want to apologize to citizens, two young people to partners. We're friends. Everyone of offending. Everyone have hurt and city's image. I being guilty and are being involved in all this That has led me here today has created such a ringing negativity on our city. And I know better who I am. But I also know where I am right now. And I accept responsibility. I accept total responsibility. I've played guilty. I'm sorry. I don't think I could say it. I don't know any other words that could be stronger. I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry. My parents were my parents had seven Children and the thing that they promised us all was a high school diploma. And so I'm sure they're smiling because they did achieve that. And my cousin came to visit me when I was in, Just graduated from high school. He said you should go to college and I had no clue how to get there. And so I worked 11 at night to 7 a.m. In the morning at a nursing home. Um, and then I walk two and 1/2 miles home, take a bath, a shower, walk around a corner. Betz Laboratories. I work from 8 34 30 to earn my first semester's tuition to whatever college accepted me first, and that was Morgan statement Morgan State College at the time. And that's how I ended up here in Baltimore when I graduated from school and from college, and my mother was sick. My dad was dying from best since poisoning. I had to help with my brothers and my sisters. Mostly my sisters can, uh, 11 had died, but Tom she was 19 committed suicide, and then and I had three younger sisters of and all who are today on disability because of health shoes. We first met on Morgan's campus, and she was a young, beautiful and young girl coming across the campus. She had just graduated. She was, I think, completing business school. At the time she was teaching at Morgan, I would see things happen or seer engaged in different events and So what is she doing there? And there she was. I started out as a banker. And what what I didn't see because I eventually us was allowed to analyze financial statements and determined cos lines of credit. But when I didn't see black people coming in and getting lines of credit and I'm like, how are businesses growing? How are businesses sustaining themselves? She was at the part of that at the heart of literally a dozen or more businesses getting money in the early seventies so that they could contribute to the black community and build up and become whatever we have now stands on the back of that work that was done in the early seventies. I saw the newspaper and I I saw it for a couple of weeks in the community and said, Who is says who? Who is it? Because after was the dominant newspaper in the black community. And of course, the Sun was a dominant newspaper in Baltimore. I'm saying, Who is it that's crazy enough to start a newspaper and go against these newspapers? And it turned out to be Catherine Pugh. It made perfect sense what she was doing, not perfect economic sense but perfect sense in the sense that it was an expression of who she was. And it was a continuation of her passion, literally for Baltimore in the black community. I remember going to the Ku Klux Klan march in more kill on the people needed to see what that look like, you know, and how frightening that waas I remember covering the Miami riots and, uh, and then going to the Congressional Black Caucus and taking a Greyhound bus to Chicago and staying in the Y M C A to see burden Jordan's last speeches President National Verbally bringing that information back to the community. Reg Murphy used to be the publisher of The Sun Papers was one. My great heroes, he said. What do you what do you want to do? And I said, I want to bridge that gap between black and white community He said, Okay, let's give it a shot. And we started out with black history and the black history supplement was inside the Sun papers and I got called following day, saying that didn't really well, what's next? And so it became five publications a year, and then we created the Henry G. Parks bridging the Gap Award, which was just Kurt Schmoke was mayor, that he gave out the first award, and the award was where the black person and white person who would work to equalize economic opportunity for black folks and an opportunity for them in the city. Every year we salute 50 leading black businesses in the city, businesses that people didn't even know she went into public service and she would meet with people from the beginning of the day to the end tonight, and then she'd been ghosting for whatever she'd fall asleep and then, for whatever time she wake up, do a run. And then she's back to the same grind I've been grateful for just had so many experiences to sit beside Michelle Obama during the State of the Union address because you passed the law that, uh, required 18 year old sustained school. It's awesome. The Baltimore Marathon, but came up with the concept of a marathon. Ah, half marathon. A team marathon with four people would run, you know, like legs like a relay race. But for me, it was about the economics of what it brought to the city Now we went from about $8 million impact on the city during the 1st 1 to now close to about $40 million. Impact on Baltimore City Fish out of water project was one of my favorite projects. Put smiles on the faces of people in the city. One of my greatest accomplishments to me was the Baltimore Design School, which is a fashion architect in design School took me almost seven years because I spent two years how looking at it another year to convincing people that it was something that the city needed to do and telling them about the energy that I saw that was up in New York and then pulling together. And I think that's the best part of that was pulling together the right people. I have to go back and constant reminder of all of the good things. Whether it was the marathon when it was fish out of war, whether was taking care of little kids. Whatever it waas, I had to remind her that she was a person who created that she was a personal ad division for the initiative for that Freddie Gray, and what happened following for you great. It was part of my district where the incident took place. Everything was breaking loose. People were when the streets, bullies were everywhere. People were upset. They were marching, they were crying, people crying. And I never forget when you guys came out and he says What we're doing I said, We're trying to just keep people comes. We were holding hands. We were trying to calm people's anger. We even saying one night, my fire sanguine, like this little light of mine just march down Pennsylvania Avenue. People followed. Everybody dispersed and went home. Katherine, Elijah and so many others played a leadership role in trying tow steer the community, trying to make the community save and keep things in line. Katherine's role in it, her participation in it becomes a moment captured in history and so becomes part of that legacy. That ritual and seeing a part of that story about it, I don't think should be forgotten. I think it has to be weighed into whatever discussion we have about Catherine Pugh. I had run from here before and I wasn't looking to run for me or again. It was suggested that I should one from here because of the Freddie Gray situation that I have been in City council. I've been in the state legislature, been in the Senate, and I wanted to take on the challenge of trying to fix the city that was broken in so many ways. Catherine Pugh was a Pennsylvania North when young men and women were so upset she began to sing a song that is appropriate not only for that corner but for this moment she began to sing song This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine. It's so, Katherine. Through your life, you have shown a light. And now God has brought you to this moment to sign a light on our great city and every person in it. So that we will do what use you said on that corner to those young people you constantly said to them, This is the greatest city in the world. And so we are glad that you're here to lift us up. Ladies and gentleman, the 50th mayor of the great city of Baltimore, Mayor Catherine Theo way when I think about me in my capacity, my capabilities and all the things I've been able to do? I said, How did you end up here? Me. How are you messed this up? I messed up. I really messed up. I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry.

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