Battleground Baltimore: The violence and evictions of the police

Battleground Baltimore: The violence and evictions of the police

Last weekend, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) tweeted out a series of photos of its officers and commanders participating in the beloved anti-violence event Baltimore Ceasefire. Along with the photos—which showed a child flanked by smiling police while holding a “Baltimore Ceasefire” sign, and Ceasefire co-founder Erricka Bridgeford receiving a hug from Police Commissioner Michael Harrison—the tweet posted on Saturday, Aug. 7, read: “Celebrating @BmoreCeasefire weekend with our community! #Unity #CommunityPolicing #MyBmore,” 
A little more than a day after celebrating Baltimore Ceasefire and boasting of its dedication to “community policing,” the BPD shot and killed someone. 
His name was Marcus...

Last weekend, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) tweeted out a series of photos of its officers and commanders participating in the beloved anti-violence event Baltimore Ceasefire. Along with the photos—which showed a child flanked by smiling police while holding a “Baltimore Ceasefire” sign, and Ceasefire co-founder Erricka Bridgeford receiving a hug from Police Commissioner Michael Harrison—the tweet posted on Saturday, Aug. 7, read: “Celebrating @BmoreCeasefire weekend with our community! #Unity #CommunityPolicing #MyBmore,” 
A little more than a day after celebrating Baltimore Ceasefire and boasting of its dedication to “community policing,” the BPD shot and killed someone. 
His name was Marcus Martin, he was 40 years old, and at around 3:00AM on Monday, Aug. 9, Officer Jeffery Archambault of SWAT shot him. A cousin of Martin’s widow took to Twitter to ask why it happened the way it did.
“I’m still at loss as to why @BaltimorePolice responded with a swat team. A mental health crisis is a mental health crisis regardless of whether the individual has a weapon or not,” the cousin of Martin’s widow tweeted.
According to police, BPD were called to the home around 9:00PM on Sunday because of an assault. There were people inside the home along with Martin, and they told police Martin had assaulted them and that he was armed. When police arrived, they were able to leave the home which left Martin alone with a shotgun, his house surrounded by cops. Days earlier, Martin had lost his job. 
The initial call to police was for an assault, and therefore it was not diverted to mental health professionals. BPD’s own “crisis response team” was also not present because it only operates between the hours of 11:00AM and 7:00PM. 
Over the next six hours, police remained outside of the home. Police said Martin shot at them: “Shortly after 3:00AM, the individual came to the door and fired his weapon. At that point, I can confirm that at least one officer returned fire, striking the individual one of our SWAT medics provided aid to the individual who was later pronounced deceased,” Deputy Commissioner Sheree Briscoe said during a press conference.
Martin’s family, however, suggested that he fired when police attempted to enter the home. A GoFundMe set up by Martin’s daughter to help with funeral costs also provides the family’s version of what happened. “THERE WAS NO HOSTAGE SITUATION NOR DID HE SHOOT IN THE DOORWAY!,” the GoFundMe reads, explaining that Martin fired at a SWAT robot sent into the home. “THEY BUSTED THE DOOR DOWN AND SENT THE ROBOT WHICH HE THEN SHOT THE ROBOT AND THEY OPENED ARMS ON HIM. THE NEWS IS A LIE!”
The language deployed by BPD is worth noting because local news was quick to run the police version of events. The shooting was described by police as an “officer-involved shooting,” a phrase that obfuscates the plain facts (police shot someone) and is regularly repeated by reporters. Martin’s shooting by police was the result, local news channel WBAL wrote, of “Martin discharg[ing] a shotgun in response to SWAT measures.” Those “SWAT measures” were not described further. The police and many news outlets also described the incident as Martin experiencing a “behavioral crisis,” something that the cousin of Martin’s wife criticized on Twitter.
“The media is misreporting this as a ‘behavioral’ crisis rather than a ‘mental health’ one to justify the fact that my cousin’s husband was murdered by a swat team after they were asked to send a mental health specialist in the midst of his mental breakdown,” he tweeted. The language deployed by BPD is worth noting because local news was quick to run the police version of events. The shooting was described...