The precursor to the recent demonstrations, in America and throughout the world, were the Baltimore riots, mostly by young black people, that the nation watched on television in 2015.

The immediate cause of the Baltimore disturbances was the hyping, by Baltimore’s monopoly newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, of the death of Freddy Gray, a small-time drug dealer with a long record, in police custody. This was described by the Baltimore Sun as a “killing.” It was represented that police had no basis to stop Gray in the first place, even though he had fled at their approach, which the Supreme Court had previously deemed a sufficient basis for an investigative stop.