Baltimore Justice: 12 Years for Smashing BPD Car Window

The Freddie Gray protests have their first conviction.

No, not the police who killed Gray. A 19 year old protester who damaged a police car during the protests.

[A]fter Gray’s death, Baltimore exploded. The tension between Baltimore’s African American community and the Baltimore Police Department rose to the surface and the city exploded. Protests and riots shook Baltimore for two weeks. During one day of protest, a crowd found an unoccupied pair of police cars and set to destroying them.

One of the members of the crowd, a young man named Allen Bullock, turned himself in to police for the crime. Bullock was charged with eight counts of rioting and malicious destruction of property. His bail was higher than any one of the police charged with Gray’s death.

He had a reasonable reaction:

“It was crazy, for real. It really happened too fast. I’ve seen a lot in like two days, a day,” said Bullock.

“I think they were trying to make an example. That was just ridiculous,” Bullock’s mother, Bobbie Smallwood, said.

The extent of Bullock’s damage? Car windows.

[D]estruction of police property is a crime that will get you the following sentence as a young black man in Baltimore:

19-year-old Allen Bullock, who pleaded guilty last month to charges against him was sentenced to 12 years all but six months suspended. Bullock must serve five years of probation, 400 hours of community service, get his GED and write an apology letter to the Baltimore City Police Department.

The police officers involved in Gray’s death, on the other hand, have yet to face conviction. Only one has faced trial. Officer William Porter is in legal limbo after the mistrial from December.

Bullock was processed quickly- an example of the efficacy of Maryland justice when the target is a young black man from Baltimore. There was no drawn out jury selection, no delicate dance between the prosecution and defense- just a quick conviction and an obscenely long sentence.

[A] 12 year sentence for damaging a police car is a horrific perversion of justice. Keep in mind too that the “suspended” 11 years and 6 months is a prison sentence in and of itself. Bullock, a young black man in Baltimore, must avoid any conflict with police in the city for over a decade or risk imprisonment.

Baltimore is not a safe place for young black men. The city’s police came under investigation by the Department of Justice after the Gray case last year. This month the department is under fire for its excessive use of tasers in predominantly poor, black neighborhoods.

The state sanctioned gang of the city’s police department is an ever-present danger. Shielded by bureaucratic machinery from any consequences for their actions, the BPD perpetuates the city’s racially based caste system through violence and repression.

Challenge that in any way- even by merely destroying a piece of property with the words “Police Department” on it- and you get a dozen years behind bars (eleven and a half of them suspended).

All six BPD officers involved in Gray’s death remain out on bail.

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