Community activist Darren Mohammad angrily stared down Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm and demanded, “How can these officers still have badges after arresting a child? They are thugs in uniforms.”
And Mohammad wasn?t alone in his hostility, as a roomful of city residents confronted Mayor Sheila Dixon and Hamm Tuesday night at the monthly meeting of the Baltimore Chapter of the NAACP in West Baltimore. The center of this storm was last week?s highly publicized arrest of Gerard Mungo Jr., a 7-year-old boy who taken into custody, handcuffed and fingerprinted for sitting on his dirt bike.
“Hamm must go,” the residents chanted, as the commissioner responded that the officersare entitled to “due process” and that the results of the investigation into Gerard?s arrest “would be made public soon.”
But Greta Carter, whose son Kevin Cooper was shot and killed by police during a domestic dispute, said too much time had passed.
“It only took you [until] the next day to conclude that my son’s shooting was justified,” said Carter, still in disbelief.
Responding to criticism that she had not personally visited Mungo to apologize, Dixon said she had called Lakisa Dinkins, Gerard?s mother.
“I gave her my cell phone number and said she could call me, because she told me she was having trouble sleeping,” said Dixon, who had planned a 10-minute visit to the NAACP meeting but stayed ? and listened patiently ? for more than an hour and a half.
“The reason I do this job is because I love this city,” she said.
Alvin Gillard, head of the police department?s community relations board, seemed shocked by the outburst.
“This is the worst I’ve seen in terms of the relationship between community and police,” he said.
After the emotionally charged meeting, Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, the NAACP?s Baltimore president, said he was pleased that people had the opportunity to air their concerns.
“This was difficult,” he said. “But sometimes it’s better to have people express their anger than letting it build up.”
