Back to Baltimore: This time for a book
Maybe it started as an impulse. One of those things which come over you in a moment and you act on it. I don’t know. Whatever it was, on April 28, after Baltimore Uprising turned violent, I was on my way to the city with no idea about what I was going to write or who would publish the story.
I was a freelancer at the time. It had been weeks since my last regular job (that’s another story). I thrusted myself into the conversation about the latest death of black man, Freddie Gray, at the hands of police, and a city reeling from his death and years of police misconduct. The media converged on Baltimore. So many in my profession stood at the intersection of North and Pennsylvania avenues, where looters had set a CVS ablaze the night before. Police officers in riot gear pointed sniper rifles at the crowd.
Again, I had no idea what I was going to write. No idea what thread I could pull from Baltimore not being yanked by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Rolling Stone or the Huffington Post. I talked to the young men, their eyes red with tears and rage. Listened to one scold the media for capitalizing on the community’s pain for ratings and clicks. Watched more young men let years of frustrations spill onto the sidewalk in chants, purposefully striding down the streets of Sandtown-Winchester in protest of Gray’s death and years of brutal policing.
In the chaos I found my story. I wrote about a tenuous gang truce settled days before the uprising turned violent. Rival gangs would become de facto auxiliary police. They would try to stem the violence, keep the looters from burning all of Sandtown-Winchester. They wouldn’t use the chaos as cover to settle old beefs. Bloods, Crips, Gangster Disciples, J’s and the Black Guerilla Family members walked side-by-side April 28 to and from the corner of Pennsylvania and North. No violence. No stares. Just a temporary alliance forged in aftermath of Gray’s death.
I left days later. My story had been sent to the Los Angeles Daily News. It was edited and posted two days after I arrived in Baltimore. The scene, the reporting, the story, changed me.
I returned in June to try to explain why the city’s streets were awash in blood as the murder rate spiked to record levels. I failed to solve that riddle. So many in the media failed that assignment. I came back yet again in December to work on a fellowship project with the John Jay Center on Media Crime and Justice.
For months I reported and wrote on the efforts of the University of Maryland Shock Trauma unit to reduce violence by working with the victims of violence. Again the city and piece of reporting changed me.
I am in Washington, D.C. now, about an hour from Baltimore. Charm City is still on my mind. And I am going back. This time for a book. So I am making this official for those who check in on my writing, for those who supported my fellowship project.
I will be spending the next six to nine months working on a book on the Baltimore Police Department and the death of Freddie Gray. I am sure I am not the only person working on a book about Gray. My plan will be to trace the last decade of the police department, politics and policies, and the last decade of Gray’s life. The two threads will obviously meet on the street where Gray was apprehended by the Baltimore Police Department.
I will examine how police policy and politics (zero-tolerance, stop-and-frisk, the politicalization of policing by Baltimore mayors past and present, etc.) contributed to Gray’s death and the uprising. The book will also examine Gray’s life (his lead paint poisoning and his run-ins with the law). Sandtown-Winchester, the impoverished West Baltimore neighborhood where Gray was born and raised, will serve as the backdrop for the narrative.
What lies ahead is a deep dive into the documents on the department and Gray, starting with the Department of Justice report released in August, which establishes a pattern and practice of misconduct by the Baltimore Police Department. I plan to examine more documents related to policing in Baltimore (I’ll give details about those documents soon) and conduct scores of interviews.
As part of reporting and writing the book, I plan to check in on Medium every two weeks, more often if necessary to post up a reporter’s notebook of the process. I hope to give those who follow my posts a bi-weekly synopsis: What I’ve learned? What obstacles stand in the way? Where I am going from here? What has surprised me? What shocks me? And open questions to those of you who choose to follow me on what you want to know about the case.
I have to admit, I have no idea how this is going to come together. My last piece for Baltimore City Paper was 3,000 words and that’s the longest thing I have ever attempted. My combination of attention deficit disorder and wanderlust won’t make this easy. So the check-ins are also a way of keeping me on little deadlines until the book is done. Send some prayers up, if that’s your thing.
For those who want to chime in, please do so through my Twitter account @JBrianCharles.
I hope you all enjoy and check-in often.
Thank you,
J. Brian Charles
