Baltimore's history of mistrust: 'When police come up, everybody runs'

Donna Leinwand Leger | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Baltimore gangs 'police' community, quell violence An unlikely coalition of gang members, pastors and community activists successfully turned away would-be trouble-makers before they even crossed the street.

BALTIMORE – Lifelong Baltimore resident Shawny Reese didn't know Freddie "Pepper" Gray and doesn't know for sure why he ran when he saw police, but she wasn't surprised.

"I grew up in the hood," Reese said, referring to the poverty-stricken West Baltimore neighborhood that has become an epicenter this week for protests against police violence. "When police come up, everybody runs. It's the culture. We know how they do business."

Gray, 25, died April 19, a week after his arrest, of a severe spinal injury. City officials who are investigating his death have promised a report on Friday. Police had previously arrested Gray, who grew up in Sandtown-Winchester, an economically depressed area beset by gang violence, for drug possession and drug dealing. This time when police arrested him after a short chase, they found no drugs – just a switchblade in his pocket.

The predominantly black neighborhoods that lie west of Baltimore's historic, gentrified downtown are crumbling jumbles of public housing and formstone brick row houses with concrete stoops. Whole blocks of the row houses are vacant, boarded up and decaying. Kids romp in ramshackle playgrounds overgrown with weeds and teens play basketball on cracked concrete courts surrounded by rusted chain-link fences. Storefront churches, liquor stores and take-out Chinese and fried chicken outlets where cashiers labor behind bullet-proof plexiglass dominate commercial life.

And then there is the business of policing.

Crime tops the list of concerns for city residents questioned for the Baltimore City Citizen Survey, conducted annually by the University of Baltimore. In 2013, the most recent data available, four out of five residents considered violent crime and drug use the top quality of life issues. But fewer than half of the city residents surveyed rated police protection as good or excellent, and nearly 20% said police protection is poor. And in the majority black Western district, residents gave police low marks for professionalism, approachability and quality of police protection.

Nine out of 10 white residents who interacted with police rated their experience as positive, while just two-thirds of black residents reported a positive experience, the survey found.

The Baltimore Police Department began two-and-a-half years ago with the appointment of Police Commissioner Anthony Batts to change how it responds to crime and interacts with the community, Capt. Eric Kowalczyk, the department's chief spokesman, said Wednesday.

The department realized it was "vastly out of alignment with the expectations that the community had," Kowalczyk said.

Police shifted away from nuisance and quality of life crimes, such as loitering on the corner and disorderly conduct, to focus on serious crimes, such as robberies, he said. Over the past two years, arrest numbers for such nuisance crimes, particularly among juveniles, have dropped dramatically, he said.

With the drop in arrests, police are fielding fewer complaints, he said. Discourtesy complaints dropped by half in 2014, he said.

"We're starting to see empirical evidence that the organization is shifting," he said. "That does not mean we're there yet. There are a lot of people who don't feel it, don't see it. And that is going to take time."

At the same time, the department is retraining officers with new policing techniques and seeking ways to engage positively with the community, such as camps for kids, he said.

"We know there is a community that hurts, that is in pain. We are working to change that," Kowalczak said. "it will take as long as it takes. You never stop trying to work with the community."

Many men who live in the area recount frequent encounters with police. A group of house painters say police often roll up while they wait at the bus stop to pat them down and search them for weapons. Teenagers say police have taken them "for a ride" in a police car for an imagined offense and dropped them off far from home.

"It's more than just Freddie Gray dying. That's just the straw that broke the camel's back," said florist Ivy Hall, who lives in the area. "We live this every day. They pull people over with no probable cause. If you run or do something you don't like, they beat you."

Thomas Plummer, 28, a tow truck driver from West Baltimore, once owned a sleek Pontiac GTO.

"Police kept stopping me, asking if I sold drugs," he said. "As a black man, you have to be worried about everything you do out here, what you drive, what you wear."

The elementary school notion of running to the friendly neighborhood policeman when you are scared or in trouble evaporated long ago in these neighborhoods, said Terrence Rogers, 22, a youth minister at the Southern Baptist Church who grew up in a West Baltimore neighborhood. Kids learn at a young age to fear police, he said.

"Police have a long history here," he said. "There's a disconnect between the police department and community that's built up over generations. People here don't trust police."

That history is personal.

"Most people I know have had someone get beat or die in police custody," Rogers said. "I've been harassed by police, humiliated by police. It leads to a lot of resentment."

The constant arrests take their toll, Rogers said. Dads get carted off to jail, leaving kids in broken homes, he said. To Rogers, it seems like the city takes more than it gives – from dads to city services, such as rec centers and public swimming pools.

"We need the city to stop taking things from us," he said.