Funeral After a Death in Police Custody
A funeral was held in Baltimore for Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man whose death from spinal injuries sustained while in police custody led to protests.
By Associated Press on April 27, 2015. Photo by Matt Roth for The New York Times.
“black lives matter” projected in capital letters on the walls, thousands of mourners crowded into a church here on Monday to bid an emotional goodbye to Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old who died from a spinal cord injury while in police custody, and to demand reforms in law enforcement and far beyond it.
Friends, neighbors, activists and government officials from the local level to the White House filled New Shiloh Baptist Church and filed past the open, white coffin bearing the body of Mr. Gray, whose death on April 19 fed claims of discriminatory and brutal policing, and set off a week of protests here. The church, with seating for 2,200, was filled to overflowing for the funeral, with many people standing inside and more standing outside, unable to crowd in.
The Rev. Jamal Bryant, delivering the eulogy, spoke of the plight of poor, young black men like Mr. Gray, living “confined to a box” made up of poor education, lack of job opportunities and racial stereotypes — “the box of thinking all black men are thugs and athletes and rappers.”
“He had to have been asking himself: ‘What am I going to do with my life?’” the Mr. Bryant said. “He had to feel at age 25 like the walls were closing in on him.”
As his voice rose to a shout, and the cheering congregation rose to its feet, Mr. Bryant said that black people must take control of their lives and force the police and government to change. “This is not the time for us as a people to be sitting on a corner drinking malt liquor. This is not the time for us to be playing lottery,” he said.
“Get your black self up and change this city,” he said. “I don’t know how you can be black in America and be silent. With everything we’ve been through, ain’t no way in the world you can sit here and be silent in the face of injustice.”
He also took a swipe at the news media for heavy coverage of scattered violence that marred protests over the weekend. “It’s easy for the news to capture young people rioting and looting. It’s easy to show that, but you ain’t ever going to say why,” he said.
Even as mourners searched for seats in the church, the Baltimore Police Department announced what it called a credible threat that street gangs “have entered into a partnership to ‘take out’ law enforcement officers.” But inside the church, the focus was on how the police and government must change.
“When society is sick and mean, the innocent will be slain,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the congregation. He noted the contrast between Baltimore’s poor, overwhelmingly black west side, and the city’s bustling, prosperous downtown.
“Sixteen thousand abandoned or vacant homes, 25 percent unemployment — we don’t need more police, we need more jobs,” he said. “Why can’t the west side get the same things downtown gets?”
William Murphy Jr., a lawyer who is representing Mr. Gray’s family and is a fixture in Baltimore legal and political circles, spoke of a “blue wall” culture of police officers covering for one another’s wrongdoing.
“It’s got to be torn down,” he said to a rousing ovation, calling for a special prosecutor to look into police brutality.
“The eyes of this country are all on us, because they want to see whether we have the stuff to make this right,” he said. “They want to know whether our leadership is up to the task.”
Much of that leadership was seated in the pews, including Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, who was one of the speakers. Also among the mourners were Kweisi Mfume, a former congressman and president of the N.A.A.C.P.; three aides to President Obama; and several family members of others killed by the police in various parts of the country, including Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, who died after a police officer put him in a chokehold last year on Staten Island.
Next to Mr. Gray in the white coffin was a white pillow bearing a picture of him, floating among clouds and flanked by doves, with the words “Peace y’all.”
Richard Shipley, Mr. Gray’s stepfather, his voice barely audible, read a poem written by Mr. Gray’s sisters, Missy and Carolina. “The tears I have cried for you could flood the earth,” it said.
Before the funeral began, Melissa McDonald, 36, a first cousin, remembered Mr. Gray, as others did, as a funny, easygoing man with a big heart who had dreams beyond the West Baltimore neighborhood where he had been arrested twice on drug charges before the police stopped him in what ultimately became a fatal encounter this month.
“He was just bubbly. He was a good student. He had dreams. He had aspirations. He didn’t want to be in the hood forever,” she said. “No, he didn’t make the best choices, but he was a loving spirit and a giving soul.”
Ms. McDonald said she believed that Mr. Gray died for a reason — to bring attention to police treatment of young black men. “Freddie always said he had a purpose in life; I believe that purpose has been served,” she said, adding that family members were dismayed by the violence that erupted over the weekend.
As the mayor issued a “call for peace,” the Baltimore police said Sunday that 35 people — 31 adults and four juveniles — had been arrested, and that six officers had sustained minor injuries Saturday night as demonstrators smashed a storefront window, threw rocks and bottles, and scuffled with officers in riot gear outside Camden Yards, the Orioles’ downtown baseball stadium.
The authorities described the fracas as “isolated pockets” of chaos after a largely peaceful march through downtown. Appearing at a church with a congressman and two dozen religious and community leaders, Ms. Rawlings-Blake accused protest leaders from outside Baltimore of inciting the violence with inflammatory language.
“Many of the people who weren’t from our community were, in essence, trying to hijack the very raw emotions of some of those who live in Baltimore and were expressing anger over the death of Mr. Gray,” Ms. Rawlings-Blake said. “Some of the people from outside were inciting,” she said, with “go out there and shut this city down kind of messaging.”
Mr. Bryant led some early demonstrations in Baltimore, but skipped the protest on Saturday and appeared at night at City Hall with the mayor to appeal for calm.
The New Shiloh Baptist Church, a well-known congregation in Northwest Baltimore, was led for decades by the Rev. Harold A. Carter, who preached on the radio. His son, the Rev. Harold Carter Jr., presided over Mr. Gray’s funeral.
Mr. Bryant’s spokeswoman said Sunday night that members of a group called Families United for Justice, which represents family members of other black men who died after confrontations with the police, would be in attendance “to support the Gray family.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has so far stayed out of the Baltimore protests, said on Monday that he had been asked “by many in the Baltimore area” to get involved, and that he intended to do so, citing reports — unconfirmed — that the police might not finish an inquiry by Friday.
Mr. Sharpton said he intended to come to Baltimore this week “to have a meeting with grass-roots activists and faith leaders to schedule a two-day march in May from Baltimore to Washington.” He said the march would bring the case of Mr. Gray — and other black men who have died after encounters with the police — to the attention of Loretta Lynch, who was sworn in as attorney general on Monday and who he said “must look and intervene in these cases.”
Baltimore has a history of tense relations between the police and black residents, and while Ms. Rawlings-Blake and the police commissioner, Anthony Batts, have said they are trying to make improvements, Mr. Gray’s death has clearly opened a deep wound in this city in which nearly two-thirds of the population is black.
Mr. Gray was chased and restrained by the police on bicycles at the Gilmor Homes, a public housing development in Northwest Baltimore, on the morning of April 12; a cellphone video of his arrest shows him being dragged into a police transport van, seemingly limp, and screaming in pain.
The police have acknowledged that he should have received medical treatment immediately at the scene of the arrest, and have also said that he rode in the van unbuckled, prompting speculation here that he may have been given a “rough ride,” in which he was intentionally jostled. After officers got him to the police station, medics rushed him to the hospital, where he slipped into a coma and died on April 19.
Six officers have been suspended with pay while the Baltimore Police Department carries out a criminal investigation. (Some demonstrators on Saturday carried signs reading, “No paid vacations.”) The Justice Department is also reviewing the case for possible civil rights violations, and Mr. Gray’s family has hired a third party to conduct an independent investigation.
The police have said they will wrap up their inquiry on Friday, and will submit the results to the state’s attorney for Baltimore — Maryland’s name for the local prosecutor — who will consider whether to bring criminal charges.
“We are about to go to a funeral tomorrow where a family has lost their son,” Mr. Cummings, the congressman, said on Sunday, appearing alongside the mayor. “And I don’t want us to lose sight of that: 25 years old, 145 pounds. A family lost their son. They will forever mourn for what could have been. I did not come here to ask the public to be respectful of the family. I’ve come to beg that.”
The protests show little sign of abating. The same group that organized Saturday’s demonstration, Black Lawyers for Justice, based in Washington, is planning another march and rally outside City Hall for this Saturday. It is advertising the march with fliers that declare “shut em down!” in bold capital letters.
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