Former Baltimore City Councilman, Congressman, and NAACP President, and President of the Board of Regents of Morgan State University, Kweisi Mfume said “the protesters seem to be more organized, in some respects than the police,” and “I haven’t seen this kind of rioting” since the death of Martin Luther King Jr. during Baltimore CBS affiliate WBAL’s coverage of the rioting in Baltimore on Monday.
“It’s just out of control, I mean I don’t know if there’s a better way to explain it right now. The protesters seem to be more organized, in some respects than the police. I think a lot of this is sporadic. I know a lot of attention has been given to the Bloods and the Crips and the Black Guerilla Family, but what I’ve seen, and what I saw after the funeral today was a sporadic sense of frustration and anger being acted out by young people” he stated.
Mfume added, “I haven’t seen this kind of rioting since April the 4th 1968, when Dr. King got shot.” Later, he said that the situation in Baltimore isn’t like things were back in 1968, and “represents years, and years, and years of pent-up frustrations, pent-up anger, being treated as if you were somehow different because of the color of skin, a police department that has oftentimes planted drugs on people or took advantage of their rights. And it has made the good officers look very, very bad, and the bad officers look very, very suspicious.”
(h/t Matt Vespa)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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