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WEEK IN HISTORY
Eye Witnesses Caught Up In History
The night the Freddie Gray riots began in Baltimore
This is part two of a series on the Freddie Gray story
Erin and her husband Peter took their two children, 14 and 12 to an ordinary Orioles baseball game in downtown Baltimore on a spring evening. Baltimore is known for its sports, with the Ravens and the O’s, and it is a very tourist-friendly city.
When the family arrived downtown, it was an ordinary, quiet evening. But soon chaos began. Earlier in the week, a young 25 year-old man, Freddie Gray had been brutally injured in police custody. He had just died from his injuries.
“We were having dinner and watching the TV on the wall. We were seeing police standing, completely blocking the streets” Erin realized it was a crazy situation, and she told her husband, “Just look out the window.” They no longer had to see it it on TV, the chaos was right outside.
For 15–20 minutes they saw the police standing in the road, in their riot gear. They finished their dinner and started walking toward the Orioles stadium. “We’re walking down the…
