The #BaltimoreUprising continues as Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake ask the heavy hitters to investigate the city. The Department of Justice has been called by the Mayor to conduct and independent investigation into the city’s police force following the death of Freddie Gray.

Gray was apprehended by police, tasered, attacked, put into a van and suffered a spinal cord break before arriving at the hospital. Gray later slipped into a coma and died. Marilyn Mosby, the State’s prosecutor for Baltimore, ruled the arrest and treatment to be unlawful and charged six officers in the case.

The city erupted in protest, marching and civil unrest, but now the Mayor is taking further steps to mend relationships with the general public by calling in a DOJ investigation along with the mandatory usage of body cameras for their police officers by the end of the year.

“Throughout my administration, we have taken a number of steps to change the culture and practices of the Baltimore Police Department,” Rawlings-Blake said.

She continued….

“Despite this progress, we all know that Baltimore continues to have a fractured relationship between the police and the community.”

“I believe we need the assistance of the Department of Justice and civil rights investigation to shore up that foundation that is weak in our city,” Rawlings-Blake said during her presser.

Many are excited to see the DOJ being called in to run an independent investigation of the Baltimore police department. They expect much of the same that was found in Ferguson, MO when the DOJ did an investigation into their policing practices. Rampant misjustice, inconsistences and unlawful, predatory targeting of black residents were found in that case.

It is our hope that the black community of Baltimore and around the country will not rest until the brutal policing tactics, procedures are curved and our citizens are no longer hunted like animals by people who are paid to protect and serve.