Baltimore Grassroots Media

A video posted Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008 on YouTube.com shows a Baltimore City police officer grabbing a 14-year-old skateboarder around the neck, throwing him to the ground, forcefully pushing him back down when he tries to get up, and confiscating his skateboard at Baltimore's Inner Harbor. According to a report by WJZ, the officer, Salvatore Rivieri, a 17-year veteran of the force, was suspended with pay Monday morning pending an internal investigation of the incident which took place sometime in the late summer.

Watch the video:

Anna Sowers, whose husband Zack Sowers is still in a coma after being beaten and robbed on June 2, 2007 while walking to his Patterson Park home, is a guest on the "NAACP Report" TV show to discuss their story and her new role as an anti-violence activist. Also appearing are Ramsey Flynn, a friend and supporter of the Sowers family, and Luke Broadwater, a reporter for the Baltimore Examiner who has covered the story.

The Baltimore City Board of Elections will post Primary Election results starting around 9 p.m. Tues., Sept. 11, 2007 with half-hourly updates at the web page http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/elections/results/.

Tune in to Baltimore City cable Ch. 75 Monday, Sept. 10 at 10 p.m. for a last chance to see the candidates for City Council President square off. The August 21, 2007 debate, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Baltimore City and WYPR 88.1 FM, aired on the radio station, but this will be the first TV broadcast of the video produced by Baltimore Grassroots Media. The participants are Democrats Kenneth Harris, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Michael Sarbanes and Charles Ulysses Smith along with Green Party candidate Maria Allwine. WYPR's Marc Steiner hosts. The winner of the Democratic primary this Tuesday, Sept. 11 will face Allwine in the Nov. 6 general election.

The City Council President candidates debate will also be broadcast on Ch. 75 Tuesday, Sept. 11 at 2 p.m. The League of Women Voters 10th District City Council Candidates debate will be shown Sunday and Monday, Sept. 9 and 10 at 8 p.m. and Monday, Sept. 10 at 4 a.m.

still frame from video by Michael Berry

By Babatunde Salaam and Ariel Simspon

At a City Hall press conference June 26, Mayor Sheila Dixon held a meet and greet with Esther Coaline–Warbey, the mayor of Baltimore’s first sister city, Gbarnga, Liberia.

In the Ceremonial Room, illuminated with flashing cameras, the two mayors discussed the similarities of their two cities and their respective struggles.

Mayor Dixon praised the Liberian mayor for visiting Baltimore and talked about potential business affairs. Mayor Dixon believes that the cities need better connections mentioning “we need tighter communties…and strengthening the relationship between the two” and that potentially Baltimore citizens could visit Gbarnga.

The Gbarnga mayor was made an honorary citizen and given a key to the city at which point Dixon quipped, “You’ll never have to pay taxes.” Mayor Coaline-Warbey later spoke in a serious tone of the damage Gbaranga took durring the 1999 civil war which resulted in the deaths of 250,000 Liberians.

When Dixon and Coaline-Warbey exchanged gifts, Coaline-Warbey put an ensemble of traditional Liberian attire on Dixon. As Coaline-Warbey attempted to place a head wrap on Dixon, she stiffened saying, “I should have done the hair thing before I went to the hairdresser.”

After the press conference, our crew caught up with Mayor Coaline-Warbey to ask her a few questions.

She explained how women came to positions of power through democratic elections in Liberia—such as current president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female elected head of state in Africa—because so many men were killed in the war that the population is now about 65% women to 35% men. "From 1847 to 2005, all of the positions, men, men, men, men, men...this is a time to try the women. We are encouraging the women right now to be a part of the process in Liberia," she said. She believes women will change the climate of Liberia.

When asked about the changes she planned to make for Gbarnga she responded, “…get one or two garbage trucks to help with the trash….I want my city to be clean, I don’t want my people to get sick.” Much like the officials of Baltimore City, she wants “to get the youth from the streets and encourage them to go to school.”

Edith Kitson-Nyeswah, a member of the Baltimore Gbarnga Sister Cities, said, “[people of Baltimore] can send an old shirt, old pants, canned foods or anything down to City Hall.” She made it very clear that the city of Baltimore has a surplus of resources and oppurtunies compared to Gbarnga. She mentioned that, “the school buildings there don’t have ceilings.”

Those wishing to make a donation to Gbarnga can contact Bong County, Liberia/Maryland USA Educational/Cultural Foundation Inc. at 443-220-6054.

By Mike Shea and Devon Brown

“He handcuffed me to a bench, and then he started asking me questions. … and they took my picture and they mug shot me, and they hand printed me.”

Less than two weeks ago, Baltimore City police arrested seven-year-old Gerard Mungo, Jr. and took him to jail. This Saturday, a short time after a noon rally in support of the boy and his family, police arrested his mother, Lakisia Dinkins, in a bizarre turn of events that many suspect was retaliation or an attempt to intimidate her for speaking out about the incident.

Background: Arrest of Boy
On March 13, Mungo, a first grader, was on the sidewalk near the front of his East Baltimore row house sitting on a small motorized dirt bike when he was confronted by police officers.

“They jumped out on him and snatched him off of the bike,” said Dinkins. “The bike wasn’t running—wasn’t on. He was just pushing it up and down the block.”

The officers initially took the boy to the Eastern District police station.

“He was handcuffed to a bench the whole time. …one hand cuffed to the bench, one hand cuffed to his wrist for like an hour and a half,” said the boy’s father Gerard Mungo, Sr.

“He’s not like most seven-year-olds. My seven-year-old, he’s amazing to me,” said Dinkins.

She says that while most kids like to watch cartoons, listen to music and play video games, her son prefers to watch educational shows, read books and even do homework.

“He’ll go into his book bag, pull out some old work … and go over the old work and finish the work he didn’t get a chance to complete in school. That’s the type of seven-year-old I have.”

Rally
Saturday’s rally, at the corner of Gay and Federal Streets, was called by the Baltimore branch of the NAACP to support little Gerard and his family.

Branch president Marvin “Doc” Cheatham told the crowd, “This has to be the issue that’ll wake us up. They’re at our children. Four men justified doing what they did. There’s a culture of white supremacy in the police department. It’s plain and simple that we’re saying we’re gonna pull the covers from over it, we’re gonna call it like it is, and if it starts from Hamm on down, you’re gonna have to go.”

Greta Carter, whose 14-year-old son was shot to death by police last summer said, “We have to continue to stick together as a people, because if you don’t stick together they will try to divide and conquer as they have tried to do to this family—tried to destroy their family, asking for her social security number. You don’t need a social security number to take a report.”

“When you traumatize a seven-year-old like that—then what they’ve done, they’ve traumatized our entire community. When they tell a seven-year-old that you shouldn’t tell what we did … if you do we’re gonna come back and lock up your mom and your dad, imagine the pain you put in a child’s brain…” said Daren Muhammad.

Arrest of Mother
Incredibly, in what police maintain was a unrelated incident, Dinkins was arrested at her sister's house around the corner shortly after the rally. After the rally, but before her arrest, we followed Dinkins to her home to interview her. Next, we went to the Eastern District police station to try to get some footage there. They told us we could not video tape inside. We wouldn’t find this out until later, but Dinkins had already been detained, saw us asking for permission to video tape, and was trying to get our attention from a side room. Shortly after we left, also unbeknownst to us, Cheatham and Muhammed arrived at the Eastern District having been notified of Lakisia’s arrest.

“We had a rally today at 12 noon to show the family love, to let them know that the injustice that had happened to them was wrong, but at the same time we wanted the community to know that they needed to be outraged… Well, later on this afternoon I get a phone call indicating that Lakisia had in fact been arrested…” said Cheatham.

“Myself and Marvin “Doc” Cheatham received a phone call from the family. We went over to investigate. We talked to numerous officers at the Eastern District and while we were there we did see Miss Dinkins. [Cheatham] asked that they release her into custody of the NAACP. They were charging her with hindering an arrest,” said Muhammed.

“We can only assume that this was retaliation—that evidently they were watching her, following her, and decided this is what they were going to do,” said Cheatham.

Later Dinkins was moved to Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center.

Release of Mother
When Dinkins was released from Central Booking and Intake Center at about 10:15 p.m. she ran to her son and they embraced. She then described how she had been singled out by the police.

“… the officer said ‘well who’s the mother of the seven-year-old?’ That’s when they pointed me out, and then he went outside and told the other officer, ‘Guess who we got inside: the mother of the seven-year-old little boy that was arrested for riding the dirt bike.’ That’s when he came in and he asked me to have a seat, so when I went to go pull up a chair he grabbed me by the back of my jacket and slammed me down in the chair, and told me that I’m under arrest, [that] I coming with him for hindering,” she said.

WJZ reported that the police department indicated that “unlike the incident involving the seven-year-old, this time, the mother did commit a crime.”

"The officers calmly tried to explain why they were inside the home, but she became very belligerent, yelling, screaming, gave several racial slurs towards one of the officers," said Officer Troy Harris, a police spokesman.

However, when we asked whether she had been given any charging documents Dinkins said no, displayed an “Application for Expungement When No Charge is Filed” and said, “They gave me this and told me, ‘fill it out and mail it in so it could be expunged.”

“We have a large number of good officers, but if you got good officers that are looking the other way when bad officers are doing injustice then they are just as guilty as the ones that are perpetrating these injustices,” said Cheatham.

“There are some good officers in Baltimore City let’s be clear on that. … If they’re wearing blue suits and they’re doing what they’ve done, they’re wrong. We don’t care if they’re black, white, brown, red or yellow.”

Supporters of the family have scheduled another rally for Tuesday, March 27 at 5 p.m. in front of Baltimore City Police headquarters at 601 E. Fayette St.

www.BaltimoreGrassrootsMedia.org

by Ron Kipling Williams

At the Baltimore Leadership Alliance for Quality Education (BLAQE) conference held at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) on October 14th, educators, parents, and concerned citizens gathered together to discuss how to improve the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS). Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) organized the conference, and he and Bishop Walter S. Thomas, Sr., served as hosts. It included educators and administrators who have achieved success in the school system. One was Jason Botel of the KIPP Academy (Ujima Village), who invited everyone to come to his school and see the outstanding progress it has made with its students. A Johns Hopkins University health official, as well as the CEO and President of the Philadelphia School system, also participated. [KIPP Ujima Village is a branch of the national Knowledge Is Power Program; together with the Crossroads School, it was established as part of the Baltimore New Schools Initiative in 2002.eds]

Two separate panels had discussions, each of which was followed by a question-and-answer period that outlined problems and solutions, or failures and strategies for success. Both panel discussions were interspersed with humor and words of wisdom. There was an intermission between them, followed by a screening of clips from HBO’s fourth season of “The Wire,” which focused on the BCPSS.

Some participants questioned Cummings about his role in exposing the crisis in the BCPSS, a system that many say has been in a downward spiral for the last twenty-five years. “It’s not about the business of airing dirty laundry. It’s about the business of lifting up our children who need urgent action,” Cummings replied.

Although the education issue has dwarfed crime as the most contentious issue in Baltimore City politics, many audience members were dismayed at the lack of political support. Those who did appear made their rounds, smiling and pressing palms before being whisked to their next election year gig. There was hardly an official face in the audience at the second panel discussion, which consisted mainly of community leaders and parent advocates. One prominent City Council member was present for less than fifteen minutes. This, many believe, indicates how officials deal with the children in the public school system. “They don’t care whether our children are standing upside-down or right-side-up,” remarked Grandmother Edna, longtime advocate, activist and after-school program founder, who was present at the conference. “I do not like it when our children are used as a pawn for a political agenda, and it was just like the Oscar red carpet effect for a political agenda,” she added.

Education and Elections

Nowhere was that political agenda more prevalent than in the October 14th televised gubernatorial debates between Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. and Mayor Martin O’Malley. The two candidates clashed over several issues, demonstrating their mutual disdain. On the topic of education, O’Malley used statistics to defend his record of success, attacked Ehrlich’s management and inaction on his pledged commitment to education during his administration, and blasted him for withholding $1.08 billion of court-ordered funding that the State of Maryland owes BCPSS. Ehrlich defended his own record, and also used statistics to point out O’Malley’s failures, reiterating that he would not fund failing schools.

Aside from the fact that it sounded like politics as usual, the real tragedy of these debates was the failure to recognize that the suffering of the BCPSS is non-partisan.

The State’s Debt to the Schools

Equity amongst school districts has historically been contentious. The Maryland Supreme Courts decision in Hornbeck v. Somerset County Board of Education was that Maryland’s constitution did not obligate all school districts in the state to spend equally per pupil. At the same time and in equal measure, the court’s ruling upheld the Maryland constitutional education clause assuring the right to “an adequate education measured by contemporary educational standards.”

With this in mind, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Baltimore City took the state to court in 1994 on grounds that its students were being inadequately educated. A summary judgment was rendered in their favor in Bradford v. Maryland State Board of Education, where Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan not only ordered the State of Maryland to compose a plan to resolve its budget deficit, but also to pay $50 million a year to the BCPSS until it was adequately funded.

However, not even a court order can force a state to pay. In 2000, the plaintiffs returned, demonstrating that the State of Maryland was still under-funding the city’s public schools. Kaplan ruled that Maryland had to provide “additional funding of approximately $2,000 to $2,600 per pupil” in 2001 and 2002, totaling $260 million. In June 2001, Governor Parris Glendening (D-MD) and the Maryland State Legislature designed the Thornton Commission, which was to implement a six-year plan to fund the much-deprived school districts and to increase achievement standards in Baltimore City. A year later Glendening signed the Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act that was slated to increase statewide education funding by $1.1 billion over five years. The ACLU touted this plan. But do more plans equal more political smokescreens? In 2004, Judge Kaplan found that the State of Maryland still owed the BCPSS $2,000 to $6,000 per student per year, totaling $439 to $839 million since 2001.

A Movement to Fix the Problem

Since 2004, numerous organizations have taken the State of Maryland to court, yet no additional funds have been awarded. Many hope this will change in January 2007 when Governor-Elect O’Malley takes office. However, there are those who are not holding their breath. “O’Malley doesn’t care about us, so we don’t care about him,” declares Ryan Mason, student activist and member of the regional Black Power group Solvivaz Nation and the Baltimore Algebra Project. The juxtaposition of the ever-expansive waterfront development and tourist attractions to the shrinking of affordable housing, increased juvenile detentions, closing of recreation centers, and a failing school system demonstrates to many residents in a predominantly African American city that they are not given a political priority.

The Algebra Project is one of the youth organizations that have been vociferously petitioning for the state to comply with its court order. They have been very public in the last two years, organizing protests in front of the office of the State Superintendent of Schools, Nancy Grasmick, which included an attempted citizens’ arrest during one of her Board of Education meetings. On the afternoon of October 14th, just one hour after the BLAQE Conference came to a close at MICA, the Algebra Project led students and advocates in a march past the Baltimore City School Board to the Seventh Baptist Church where they convened the Maryland Freedom Board of Education (MFBE), invoking Article Six of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and declared themselves a legitimate body designed to be an alternative to the current State Board of Education.

The MFBE was modeled after the historic Freedom Summer of 1964 where legendary civil rights organizer Fanny Lou Hamer organized the Mississippi Freedom Party after being shut out of the Democratic Convention. In the following election cycle, they were included, a turning point in the struggle for voting rights for blacks. The MFBE looks for a similar turning point—namely, to be recognized by the Baltimore City Council as a legitimate body—as they continue the fight to wrest the $1.08 billion in court-ordered funds from the grip of the State of Maryland.

Privatization of Schools

What is equally puzzling is the growth of charter schools in Baltimore City. Two years ago, the Maryland General Assembly legalized charter schools at the behest of Ehrlich. This year, the Maryland State Board of Education ruled that school systems must provide as much cash money per student to charter operators as they do in standard public schools. In effect, the Board and the State Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick rubber-stamped the privatization of schools. This decision severely affects the BCPSS, which under the new ruling receives $7,500 per student, as opposed to $11,000 per student in a charter school. Worse still is evidence that charter schools fail, according to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, published by the U.S. Department of Education. The Department of Education came out with a similar report the following year. This could be seen as even more injurious, considering that the BCPSS for years has suffered with building neglect, understaffed security, outdated textbooks and a scarcity of school supplies

Adding insult to injury is the State Board of Education’s outrageous policy of requiring many teachers to conduct a yearly High School Assessment (HSA) Test. Last year, the State pass information to the City stating that students need not be worried about the HAS test, and that it would not count against them. Trust the State, the City forwarded the information to its students, and what resulted was disastrous. Many students failed the tests because they didn’t take them, or merely wrote their names on the exams and left. As a result, seven schools were placed on the State of Maryland’s list of schools to take over. The City greeted the State’s deception with indignation. The General Assembly granted the City one year to turn the schools around. There are those who wonder how BCPSS can succeed in 12 months in what they have failed to do for 12 years.

Perhaps it was in this context that Governor Ehrlich felt justified in making the public remark that some Baltimore City students were unable to read their diploma. Perhaps it is a horrible tragedy, a statistical phenomenon that plagues urban schools nationwide. But young people like Chantél Clea, Chair of the Baltimore Youth Commission feel that remarks like Ehrlich’s are inappropriate and counterproductive to improvement efforts. “They are supposed to be our leaders. They’re not setting a good example,” remarked Clea. Furthermore, many feel the remarks only serve a political agenda. Clea expands, “A lot of the issues around Baltimore City didn’t just happen. It’s been going on for a while. These young people are aware that [the politicians] wait until the proper time so it’s fresh in people’s minds, so it’s the first thing they think about when they go to the polls. But if you really want to affect young people, don’t wait until the last minute when it’s convenient for you. Work with us all year long.”

What is the ultimate tragedy in this current climate, where education is a pawn on a political chessboard, where ineptitude reigns supreme in local government, where mainstream media are rendered impotent by political pressure not to air dirty laundry, and where suffering is imposed on the most abused and neglected constituency? The children.


This article originally appeared in the Indypendent Reader (Winter 2006-7) a quarterly newspaper published jointly by Baltimore Independent Media Center and CampBaltimore.

Maryland State Board of Elections election results for Baltimore City. Over 11,000 absentee ballots (as of Tuesday afternoon) to be counted beginning Thursday, November 9 at 10 a.m.

Group prevails despite misleading assurances and contradictory rationale from consultant to city school system

By Mike Shea

BALTIMORE—Were it not for the last-minute actions of a group of parents and staff from Dickey Hill Elementary/Middle School, the school would have been designated for demolition in the current round of school closings.

A Baltimore Grassroots Media (BGM) video taken January 5, 2006 shows a consultant to the city school system first assuring the school's advocates that their school will not be closed and later contradicting herself by revealing that the recommendation of her committee is actually to demolish the school and build a new school at an undetermined location.

The video follows Dickey Hill parents and staff from a strategy session at their school to a showdown at the final planning meeting of the southwest area committee for "Facility Solutions: The New Vision for Baltimore City Schools Planning Process," held at Edmondson-Westside High School, as they rally to prevent their school from being closed.

Initially, Jodi Yutzy, a planner with DeJong and Associates, tells the group that the meeting is not open to the public. When they are still gathered in the hall outside the meeting room 15 minutes later, she comes out and assures them that they do not need to be there.

"I just want you to know that the option to close the building is not on the table, so if that changes your decision about whether you're here tonight or not, it's not closing. Okay. Just so you know that. Dickey Hill is not on the option to close. It was just one option. Everybody voted it down, so we're saying forget it."

Seeking further explanation and confirmation, the parents are eventually allowed into the cafeteria where the meeting is to be held. Yutzy agrees to talk with them because the committee members have not yet arrived. After she repeats her assurances that Dickey Hill is not going to be closed, first grade teacher Judy Geisler asks what the exact recommendation is. Yutzy's response stuns the Dickey Hill advocates.

"It's demolishing the building and putting in a new building in that neighborhood, Dickey Hill neighborhood. That is the preferred option. That is the recommendation. It can be done in large metropolitan districts. If you have a different site in the neighborhood you can build a new building on that site."

In the ensuing uproar, Geisler exclaims, "What? What is she saying? You're saying you want to tear our building down? Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!" Dickey Hill's principal, Joyce Hughes is heard saying, "$26 million plus—they are not going to rebuild that building!" And Jacqueline Patrick, whose son is in the first grade at the school adds, "Our kids aren't going to be the ones that get to go there!"

When parents ask where the new site is, Yutzy reveals that it has not been determined yet saying, "That's what the real estate has to figure out."

Asked earlier why the school was even considered for closure she says, "That one option came up for Dickey Hill because it's kind of up there by itself in the planning area." When a parent asks why they would close the only school in the area, Yutzy says, "from the projections it looked like the amount of children in the area was going to be reduced by the time this plan rolled out."

Parents are never given an explanation for why, if the student population is projected to decline, the committee is planning to recommend a new school with a larger capacity of 500, up from 460.

The condition of the school is also indicated as a reason for closure, but the parents and school staff show that the facilities report is false—that the school is, in fact, in good condition with many new renovations including new lighting, a new playground, a new state-of-the-art science lab and a computer lab.

The parents suspect that the real reasons the school has been picked for closure are gentrification in the area and the real estate value of the school property in an area of the city with a lot of green space—not concerns for their children's education. They point to new luxury homes being built in the area with prices starting at $450,000.

Over 99% of Dickey Hill students are African-American, and 82% of the students receive lunch subsidies. Many of the students live in the apartment complexes surrounding the school that, since the summer of 2003, have been changing their leasing policies to exclude the Section 8 voucher program.

DeJong is an Ohio consulting firm that was hired for $1 million by the Baltimore City Public School System to lead the community through the process of deciding which schools to close, renovate or reconfigure. Funding for city schools is being withheld by the state until some schools are closed to reduce "excess capacity."

In the end, due to the tenacious activism of the parents and school staff—and possibly the presence of a BGM video camera—Yutzy and James Smith, chair of the southwest area committee and area academic officer for the BCPSS, address the camera for the record and agree to change the committee's recommendation to be that Dickey Hill stay open and receive moderate renovations.

The recommendations of the committee still have to be approved by the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners at their March 28, 2006 meeting.

Check Baltimore City public access channel 75 schedule for broadcast of the 30 minute video "Saving Dickey Hill."