Sybrina Fulton came to Baltimore on Sunday, to “see some of the thousands who have stood with her family to demand justice for her son,” according to a story in the Baltimore Sun.
Fulton is the mother of Trayvon Martin, who was only 17 years old when he was fatally shot in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26. George Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder in Martin’s slaying.
Martin — or his death, at least — has become a national cause celebre in the past few months. Fulton is right: Thousands have stood with her family to “demand justice.” But I have some bad news for her.
None of them should have been from Baltimore. Residents of that city should indeed be demanding justice for someone, but Trayvon Martin isn’t that someone.
I guarantee you that not one of the people who attended Baltimore’s Empowerment Temple this past Sunday and gave Fulton a standing ovation when she visited the church can remember the names Jennifer Morelock and Jason David Woycio.
Morelock and Woycio were from Carroll County, Md. They were visiting a part of West Baltimore known for drug activity. And they were white, which is very pertinent to this story.
On that April day in 2006, some thug shot both of them, fatally. A police lieutenant acting on a tip stopped a 17-year-old black youth — yes, his race is pertinent to this story too — shortly afterward and got his consent to search his cellphone for other numbers that might have been those of gang members.
While searching the phone for other numbers, the police lieutenant happened to find this text message:
“I shot 2 white people around my way 2day and 1 of them was a woman.”
The lieutenant arrested the youth and charged him with murder. What looked like a slam-dunk, open-and-shut first-degree murder case went south when the state’s attorney’s office threw out the charges. The reason? The lieutenant had only received consent to search for phone numbers. The search for text messages was illegal.
I contended then and contend now that dropping the charges based on that reasoning was taking the exclusionary rule a little too far. And I also contended this: Had the races of the suspect and the victims been reversed, the charges never would have been dropped.
That’s why Maryland Del. Patrick McDonough was perfectly justified when he issued a press release recently with the headline “Black Youth Mobs Terrorize Inner Harbor on Holidays.”
McDonough, whose district includes eastern Baltimore County and part of Harford County, was called a racist for his candor. But McDonough knows, as do Baltimore’s elected officials, that race determines what kind of justice you get in Baltimore, if you get any at all.
After six years, the families of Morelock and Woycio are still waiting to get the justice due them. Elected officials in Baltimore refuse even to acknowledge they were murdered, much less suggest they get anything resembling justice.
Gov. Martin O’Malley was mayor of Baltimore when Morelock and Woycio were murdered. He mumbled not one word about charges being dropped against the suspect.
Mind you, as mayor, O’Malley criticized just about every decision then-State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy made. Except that one.
Mayor Sheila Dixon, who followed O’Malley, has said not one word.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who followed Dixon, hasn’t said one word.
Current State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein, who somehow managed to run against, and criticize, Jessamy without once mentioning the names Morelock and Woycio, has been mum too.
And the Empowerment Temple’s congregation is more upset about a murder that took place way down in Florida than one that happened right in their own town.
Trayvon Martin was black; Morelock and Woycio were white. Does ANYONE detect the stench of racism here?
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
