Students Claim Police Brutality During Riot
A riot broke out in a Cambridge,Maryland high school. The students involved are now claiming police brutality.
On March 1, a riot quickly escalated in a high school which is located in the small town of Cambridge, Maryland. I recently just moved out of the state of Maryland, my home was less than 10 minutes away from this school. Several students recorded this event on their phone. The reason for the phone recordings, were solely so that these students could prove police brutality on the officers that were called into the school.
During the video you can hear the students loudly making severel statements.
Here are a few -
"OH, he slammed him"
"They going crazy in here"
"I got all dat" (claims to alleged police brutality)
"We got it all"
"Look at how they doin him"
"We want all dat, we want all dat, we want all dat"
In the video, there is not any police brutality. I have saved you the trouble of wasting your time on this video and made a few screenshots instead. The image quality is poor due to the phone that was used for the recording. You can see a line of students on one side of the cafeteria. In the middle of the cafeteria, a student wearing red shoes had been taken down to the ground because he was trying to fight another student and was not listening to authority. A second student ran from the police and had to be chased and taken to the ground as well.
There are several police in the video seen standing around observing the situation. The police were simply doing their job.
I'm actually a very big advocate for raising awareness about police brutality. The moment I heard about this incident, I immediately checked out the details. I am not a fan of people spreading the rumor of police brutality when there is none. There are several exceptional police officers that do their job very well.
I first started to become aware of police brutality many years go. Baltimore is a widely known city in Maryland due to its high crime rate. According to Forbes, Baltimore ranks number 7 on the 10 Most Dangerous U.S Cities list. With that being said, there are several occasions that the police in Baltimore, Maryland have needed to use excessive force to control a person. Baltimore is also widely known for the corrupt cops that gain employment into the police department. The police have been known to brutally assault people on several occasions when force was never needed in the first place. Baltimore police abuse their rights as officers almost daily.
One of the biggest stories claiming police brutality was the case involving the death of Freddie Gray. Five officers faced trial after Gray, a Baltimore resident, died in the hospital after being arrested by the police. Gray died from spinal injuries six days after being arrested. In the end, the police in Baltimore faced no federal charges in the death of Freddie Gray.
People have begged and pleaded for their voice to be heard when they claim that the police abuse their power as officers, this happens all over the world. Baltimore residents recently got lucky and finally got the news that they have desperately been waiting for. In 2016, an investigation started on the Task Force in Baltimore, Maryland. There were 9 members total in this Task Force and recently 8 of them have been arrested.
The charges these officers received are related to abuse of power and violation of locals constitutional rights. The allegations against these police officers are rather mind blowing. The residents have tried to have their voice heard but no one would listen. No wonder Baltimore made it the most dangerous list. The locals have unfortunately felt like they could not depend on the police and have taken matters into their own hands. It doesn't matter if we believe this to be the right thing to do or not, it has happened and the corrupt cops have a lot to do with the high crime rate. Of course, Baltimore residents are also to blame. Drugs are a major contributing factor to crime and there certainly are ways for the residents to have their voice heard rather than taking crime/murder into their own hands.
Let us take a look at these allegations made on these police officers which have come from some of the officers very own testimony:
The officers would drive really fast straight towards a group of people, hoping to scare them and see who took off running. Running when the officers drove towards these people then gave the officers probable cause to chase and search them.
In one case, the officers took a man's house key, they searched the databases to find where this man lived. Once they found this information the police went into the man's house, inside they found drugs and a safe. The officers found 200,000 in the safe and allegedly took half of it. They then filmed themselves pretending to open the safe for the first time and only finding $100,000, that way they had a cover up.
During the riots in 2015 over the death of Freddie Gray, one officer allegedly stopped a looting at one of the local pharmacies. The officer then stole the drugs himself, gave them to a drug dealer on the streets and split the proceeds.
The officers have allegedly stolen drugs and money for their own selfish needs on several occasions. There is one instance that happened in July 2016, with no known evidence of any crime the officers picked up a married couple and found out that they had cash inside of their home. The police stole $20,000 of the $40,000 found inside the home. Once they stole what they wanted, they called for backup stating that they uncovered criminal activity and during this search they claim to have only found $20,000 in cash.
In total, the task force has been suspected of stealing 43 pounds of marijuana, 800 grams of heroin, 3 kilos of cocaine and jewelry worth thousands. The members of the task force then allegedly sold the drugs back onto the streets and sold the jewelry, splitting the profits between themselves.
One officer said that the unit carried toy guns as well as BB guns with them at all times. If they accidentally shot and killed an unarmed citizen, they planted the gun.
This is an extremely small amount of the allegations made on these officers. It has also been said that the officers have done set ups for multiple baseless searches, robbed and assaulted several citizens, stolen guns to sell on the street, and received overtime when they were not working at all. These officers were all members of an elite task force, their primary job was to get firearms off of the streets of Baltimore. Instead they made it their job to loot as much drugs, guns and cash as they possibly could for their own selfish gains. These are only recent examples of the police abusing their power in Baltimore, this has gone on for years. Living less than 45 minutes away from Baltimore, over the years I felt drawn to raise awareness for this abuse by those in uniform. Several stories have spread across the media that directly relate to corrupt police officers all over the world, these stories include rape and abuse as well. Recently in New York, two police officers have been charged for alleged rape on a 14 year old girl. Awareness needs to be raised all over the world!
I want to live in a world that knows what peace, love and compassion truly means. I want my daughter to grow up and live in that type of world as well. I am not on one side of the law. I also stand up for those in uniform that have been abused or shot dead by civilians for apparently no reason at all. I stand up for what is right regardless of age, sex, race or job employment.
Back to the story about the school in Cambridge, Maryland.
A third student is seen in the video trying to push through a teacher so that he can get to another student. This teacher is much larger in size and can still be seen struggling to get this student to the opposite side of the room. In this next set of pictures you can easily tell by the position these two are in, the student has clearly not obeyed what he was told to do. A police officer is also seen watching the teacher correct the situation. The students still claim police brutality.
Eventually this student was escorted out of the cafeteria with a police officer directly by his side.
There are two main issues I have with how these students have acted and by them claiming police brutality.
Majority of the time, people never listen to a person make a statement in regards to a corrupt police officer. It's not until years later, with hardcore evidence that they ever get caught, the recent arrest on the task force in Baltimore is a prime example. That's after damage that many of us will not ever know of, has been done. This is also just the very small percent that actually does get caught. When people claim police brutality over situations that clearly are not, this takes away from those of us who actually raise awareness for true police brutality. This makes it harder for a voice to be heard, a voice that doesn't always have evidence. This voice will often get pushed under the rug as if it's just another false police brutality claim.
The next issue is the fact that children have been raised to behave this way. Raised to show pure ignorance and disrespect to all authority. These children have been raised with no guidance at all. Instead of claiming police brutality for officers taking control of these unruly students, one should really focus on why they believe it is okay to act this way. These children need knowledge packed into their heads. Valuable knowledge that will help them grow into educated adults. So many people, adults included, think that they can get away with this disrespect because their heads are packed with the idea that all police are corrupt and no authority will tell them what to do. This is far from the truth.
