It was always going to be just a matter of time before another interaction involving the police and a Black person in Baltimore ended badly. We’ve just seen three happen, all within the span of a few weeks. 

Bilal “BJ” Abdullah died on June 17 in a chaotic incident in Upton community. Police bodyworn cameras show him firing three shots at officers. Officers fired 38 shots back at him. 

On June 25, Dontae Maurice Melton Jr. died in police custody after being restrained by BPD officers. He’d approached them looking for help. 

On June 27, an officer shot and killed 70-year-old Pytorcarcha Brooks. They had been called to her home for a welfare check and police say she advanced with a knife on an officer who slipped and fell.

And in truth, it’s likely that there are other incidents that happened in the years since Freddie Gray’s in 2015. Incidents involving police and the communities they are supposed to serve. 

We document all of these incidents in this issue. 

I say that it was only a matter of time because we haven’t gotten to the root of the problem, and there is very little political will to do that work. 

Freddie Gray’s death happened after a series of public Black deaths happened nationwide, in ways that could no longer be ignored. When communities couldn’t be ignored, politicians got uncomfortable. And when politicians got uncomfortable, they used their power to at least make motions toward the idea that something safer and better than policing as we knew it could exist.

Ten years passed and politicians are no longer uncomfortable. State’s Attorney Ivan Bates addressed the Baltimore City Police Department directly at his swearing in several years ago. He told them that they should feel more free to do their jobs under his reign than they should under former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who had instituted more progressive measures. “For far too long, the State’s Attorney’s Office has tried to be all things to everybody, and, quite frankly, it hasn’t worked.”

Last week, Mayor Brandon Scott gave police his own sign of approval. “We should not allow anybody to be reduced to the worst moments of their life or circumstances around their death,” media quoted him as saying after Abdullah’s death. “But I’m going to be very clear, we cannot and will not allow individuals to carry and use illegal guns against police officers or anybody else in Baltimore without there being repercussions.”

He made the comments at the opening of a pool. The public death didn’t justify a press conference. There were no words about the safety of others in a community where over 30 shots were fired by police officers. There were no words of sympathy for the people who witnessed the incident.

This paper is free because I feel strongly that healthy communities only exist when everyone is informed. In the same way, healthy communities cannot exist unless the safety and health of everyone is a priority. 

The unrest that followed his death was a bubbling up of years of slights and resentments. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called outraged Baltimoreans thugs and doomed her career in public office. 

Back in 2015, then-councilperson Brandon Scott marched with groups calling for change. In 2025, he went out of his way to side with police. 

“We should not allow anybody to be reduced to the worst moments of their life or circumstances around their death,” he said. “But I’m going to be very clear, we cannot and will not allow individuals to carry and use illegal guns against police officers or anybody else in Baltimore without there being repercussions.”

He made the comments at the opening of a pool. The public death didn’t justify a press conference. 

The post  Letter from the editor – Issue 64 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

One thing I’ve observed in the last decade I’ve spent writing and reporting about Baltimore was that after the death of Freddie Gray, the way city leaders discussed police and policing changed — but the dangerous and racist roots of policing remained firmly in place. 

Suddenly, it became fashionable for leaders to hint at the root causes of violence. However, that didn’t mean that funding for police or the immense power that the institution has over this city changed in any measurable way. Logan Hullinger’s detailed and careful reporting in this issue confirms this. 

“In a staggering indictment of policing in Baltimore, a Baltimore Beat analysis of police data shows that nearly all people arrested and charged with drug crimes in Baltimore are Black — even though studies show that drug use rates among the Black population are similar to those of other races,” he writes.

Hullinger examined arrest statistics from the Baltimore Police Department, alongside demographics from the U.S. Census Bureau to arrive at this conclusion. 

In their defense, the Baltimore Police Department says they are simply targeting areas of the city where crime exists.

“The BPD prioritizes enforcement efforts on drug-related activities that contribute to violence, such as trafficking and distribution by organized criminal networks. Enforcement strategies continue to evolve, focusing on dismantling open-air drug markets and addressing addiction through a public health lens, including diversion programs and drug court. Officers also address cases where substance use contributes to broader public safety concerns,” BPD spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge told Hullinger.

Also in this issue, Jaisal Noor spoke to young local activists about why they continue to organize on behalf of Palestinians.

“We wanted to show that even if it’s just a handful of us, we’re not going to let our school go about with a land acknowledgment and then censor students who want to talk about Palestine,” Qamar Hassan, a graduating senior at the Maryland Institute College of Art, told Noor. 

Elsewhere in this issue, Angela N. Carroll writes about “Crosscurrents: Works from the Contemporary Collection,” a new exhibition now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art that examines the ways that the fight for social justice intersects with the fight for environmental justice.

“You’ll see that some of the work [and] themes are very directly anchored in ecology, where the artist is making a direct statement about environmental justice. But much more often, you’ll see a more expansive relationship with that subject, thinking about environmental justice and social justice as entwined,” Cecilia Wichmann, curator and department head of contemporary art at the museum, told Carroll.

For “Best Beats,” Arts and Culture Editor Teri Henderson writes about new music from Yaira Wang (formerly known as Grey Dolf), Nourished by Time, Moon Tide Gallery, and a bunch of local DJs. Our Photostory page features scenes from Baltimore Pride over 20 years ago, through the lens of the late photographer Joseph Kohl. 

All this is in addition to a new film review from Dominic Griffin, a poem from Writers in Baltimore Schools participant Javonte’ Patterson, and calendar listings of events happening all over the city.

You’ll also see two graduation announcements in this issue. If you’d like for us to publish yours, follow the QR code on page 10. 

Thank you for reading. 

The post Letter from the editor – Issue 63 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Welcome to our Pride issue. At a time when LGBTQ+ people endure further marginalization and even more inhumane treatment, we are especially proud to dedicate this space to all things Pride.

In these pages, Baltimore Beat Arts and Culture Editor Teri Henderson writes about the “rapture and refuge” of spaces dedicated to queer life. 

“They are sanctuaries where folks on the fringe of society — the marginalized — can congregate, find community, and locate kinship,” Henderson writes.

“They’re where people flirt, fall in love, fight, order rounds of shots, lose their keys, stumble, place dirty coins in jukeboxes, or queue up TouchTunes. With each of these small, communal acts, we affirm that we are alive.”

Here, she is focused on Leon’s of Baltimore, which dubs itself as the city’s oldest gay bar. Bartenders at the Mount Vernon institution say all are invited to sit, have a drink, and even belt out a tune or two during karaoke night.

“I tell people all the time: ‘It’s just karaoke. It ain’t the Meyerhoff,’” bartender Stacey Q told Henderson. 

Trans people have always existed and will continue to exist. The people behind Baltimore Center Stage’s Trans History Project want to make sure we all know that. 

“The brainchild of Baltimore Center Stage Artist-in-Residence Bo Frazier, the Trans History Project aims to develop 10 new plays about the history of gender nonconformity, drawing from a national pool of artist applicants,” writes Rahne Alexander. “In all, 10 transgender and gender non-conforming writers will be placed in two-year development residencies across the country.”

“The purpose of this project is not only to pay TGNC artists and boost representation, but also to prove, hopefully once and for all, that we have always existed, the binary isn’t real and that anti-trans hatred is the thing that has not always existed,” Frazier told Alexander. 

We asked you, our readers, to share creative expressions that illustrate what Pride means to you. Please enjoy the essays, images, photos and poems that you shared with us. We only wish we had more space to publish them all. 

Dominic Griffin reviewed “Naz & Maalik,” a 10-year-old independent film that exactly captures the double surveillance state that people who are both Muslim and queer live under right now, in 2025. 

Finally, learn more about “We Are… Proud,” an exhibit at the Maryland Center for History and Culture that takes a deeply personal look at queer life here in Baltimore and, more broadly, in the state of Maryland. 

“While the narratives in our LGTBQ+ collections are not yet comprehensive, we hope that increasing representation in the museum will help queer Marylanders know that we value their stories,” writes Abby Doran, assistant curator at the museum.

Thank you for reading and happy Pride!

The post Letter from the editor – Issue 62 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Baltimore Beat is proud to welcome Report for America corps member Kori Skillman to our team as part of our partnership with Report for America.

Skillman will report on justice and accountability. That means she will investigate policing, incarceration, and civil rights in Baltimore City. Skillman will begin her assignment in July.

“We know that a lot of the news about this incredibly vital subject matter is driven by fear rather than facts,” said Baltimore Beat Editor-in-Chief Lisa Snowden. “Skillman comes to us with a wealth of reporting experience under her belt. We know she’ll do a great job bringing helpful and useful information to our audience.”

Report for America is a national service program that places talented emerging journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics and communities across the United States and its territories. 

“We are pleased to partner with our host newsrooms to shed light on under-covered topics and communities, and the 2025 corps member cohort brings deep talent and diverse experiences to do just that,” said Earl Johnson, vice president of recruitment and alumni engagement at Report for America. “We intentionally invite journalists from diverse backgrounds to consider Report for America not only as their next professional opportunity, but for the chance to make a profound and lasting community impact.”

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When I heard that Maryland Governor Wes Moore and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown announced that an independent audit of Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found that at least 36 police custody deaths should have actually been ruled as homicides, I immediately thought of Tawanda Jones.

“Tawanda Jones, the sister of Tyrone West, has spent every Wednesday since West’s death calling for accountability for her brother’s death and all victims of police brutality,” Madeleine O’Neill writes in her story about the audit. West died in 2013 after he was pulled over by Baltimore City Morgan State University police officers. That’s hundreds upon hundreds of Wednesdays spent without her brother. Hundreds of hours spent organizing, speaking out, and trying to move powerful people to pay attention to her cause. 

This country has always presented Black people with an extraordinary number of horrors and then demanded of them an extraordinary amount of patience that at some point, those horrors would be addressed. 

“Gov. Wes Moore also announced several executive actions in response to the audit results, including granting the Attorney General’s Office the authority to review the 36 cases where reviewers unanimously agreed a death should have been ruled a homicide. Moore also established a task force on in-custody restraint-related death investigations,” O’Neill reports.

In our arts section, Bry Reed introduces us to Katie Mitchell and leads us on a journey through the interconnected community that makes up Black-owned bookstores. Mitchell’s book, “Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores,” unpacks systems of mutual aid that keep Black bookstores alive, and the constant government scrutiny that these bookstores have always endured. 

“Being in the archives, I realized that the FBI probably has the most complete archive of Black bookstores because they were being surveilled so much,” Mitchell told Reed. “A lot of the ephemera that Black bookstores have probably wouldn’t be around if the FBI hadn’t archived it. It’s kinda like great that I get to see this flyer about the Black bookstore George Jackson movement. However, the reason I get to see it is because [these stores] were getting spied on!”

With “Sinners” back in theaters and once again dominating the box office, Dominic Griffin encourages us to take a more clear-eyed view of the film. 

“We may have to work twice as hard to get half as much as our white counterparts. Still, true progress would be allowing a piece of Black art to exist outside of the insecure need to insist that something flawed is literal perfection, robbing it of the chance to exist as anything less than a victory lap against the establishment,” he writes. 

Be sure to also catch images of a beautiful public mural project that has been unfolding under I-83, just in time for a newly revamped and city-controlled Artscape weekend. You’ll also find June tarotscopes from Iya Osundara Ogunsina, and a poem from a participant in the organization Writers in Baltimore Schools.

Thanks, as always, for reading. 

The post Letter from the editor – Issue 61 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

In this issue, we bring you two stories that exist only because the people in them decided to speak out.

Journalist Logan Hullinger and Baltimore Beat Managing Editor Sanya Kamidi spoke to women who worked under Chad Williams, executive director of the West North Avenue Development Authority (WNADA). As head of the highly influential organization, Williams is tasked with revitalizing the West North Avenue corridor, an area of the city that has long been neglected. However, Hullinger and Kamidi’s reporting uncovers a history of past allegations of harassment. 

“In the past decade, Maryland state employee Chad Williams has been the subject of a federal investigation over his handling of sexual harassment complaints at a Nevada housing authority; has himself been accused of sexual harassment at two different workplaces; and was convicted of domestic violence while actively leading an agency in Baltimore,” they write.

The two spoke with four women here in Baltimore who detailed the troubling time they spent working under Williams at the WNADA. Several of the women have tried to bring attention to Williams’ behavior but said that their words have largely been ignored.

“Everyone turned a blind eye to this stuff,” one woman, whose real name we are not using due to her fear of retaliation, told us. “What about accountability? What about the lives he ruined?” 

Also in this issue, reporter Madeleine O’Neill writes about some of the thousands of people who were sexually abused while they were housed in Maryland juvenile detention centers. A warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse and violence against children. 

Kevin Pullen, now 41, says he was just 14 when he was abused. He said what happened to him left him angry and untrusting of people. He spent time as an adult in and out of prison. 

New legislation passed in Annapolis this year greatly reduces the amount of money victims like Pullen can receive for the abuse they suffered. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office “neither confirms nor denies the existence of an investigation” into past incidents of abuse in the Department of Juvenile Services system. 

Eze Jackson is back with another Best Beats column. This time he reviews music from local artists Chipelo, DJ AAVE, The Bysons, Bashi Rose, and Plant Dad. If you’d like for us to review your new music, just send it to us at music@baltimorebeat.com. 

We also have vibrant photos from the grand opening of new dining destination The Mill on North, film critic Dominic Griffin remembers acting legend Gene Hackman by way of his 1998 thriller “Enemy of the State, and as always we leave you with a poem from a participant in the group Writers in Baltimore Schools. 

Thank you for reading. 

The post Letter from the editor – Issue 60 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Freddie Gray’s death, the Uprising that followed, and the city’s response to police violence deeply altered the way I thought about journalism. I felt pushed to think seriously about the way class comes into account in a city governed by mostly Black politicians. It caused me to think about the way media can be used to sell the police to citizens, as opposed to educating them about the police as a powerful entity in the city — one that residents help fund. It made me look for the people and organizations who were working to build real solutions to the problem of police violence. 

This issue seeks to recognize the 10 years that have passed since Gray was first chased down by Baltimore City police and thrown into the back of a police van. He died on April 19, 2015. His death set off a series of protests throughout the city.

Journalist Baynard Woods talked to some of the people who were on the ground during that tumultuous time in 2015, leading up to and after the death of Freddie Gray. 

“My feeling right now is that the police killed more people last year in the United States, despite crime being dramatically lower than it was in 2015,” Jenny Egan, co-founder of the Baltimore Action Legal Team (BALT) told Woods. “Despite all of the changes in the United States, cops are still killing people.

Logan Hullinger and Jaisal Noor wrote about the work BALT is currently doing.

“A decade later, BALT is among the few initiatives launched in the wake of the Uprising that continues to operate. What started as an emergency legal response has transformed into a long-term fight for systemic change both through the courts and through grassroots organizing,” they write.

Our photostory shows rarely seen photos by award-winning photojournalist and artist Devin Allen, who used his camera to help bring light to what was happening at the time in Baltimore. 

Our cover, which features one of Allen’s photos, was designed by Wide Angle Youth Media. 

You’ll also find a poem written by Writers in Baltimore Schools participant Piper Matthews and a list of events happening throughout Baltimore to recognize this moment in history. 

Be sure to go to baltimorebeat.com for even more content. 

We hope this issue encourages you, the reader, to keep the issue of police violence at the front of your mind, even as so many things about this country feel uncertain and challenging. We hope you remember the lives of Freddie Gray, his family, and his community. We hope you think about all the people who work tirelessly to create a better, safer world for all of us.

The post Letter from the editor- Issue 59 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

In this issue, Grace Hebron writes about a project at the Baltimore Museum of Industry that seeks to record the stories of the people most affected by last year’s Key Bridge collapse. 

The collapse, which happened in the early morning hours of March 26, 2024, claimed the lives of six construction workers: Miguel Ángel Luna González, Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, José Mynor López, Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval, and Carlos Daniel Hernández. 

“They were living and working what is, in many ways, a typical experience for immigrants who come in and do that middle-of-the night work that nobody else wants to do. We wanted to honor that,” BMI’s executive director Anita Kassof told Hebron. 

There is so much hate being levied at immigrants right now, as the Trump administration looks to demonize those who come to this country looking to create lives for themselves. Even as I write this, ICE officers are disappearing people from their homes, often with no legal justification to do so. So, it feels necessary right now to honor the lives of these men who wanted the same things most other people do: to take care of their families, to create lives for themselves. 

Also in this issue, Dominic Griffin writes about “Luther: Never Too Much,” an intimate documentary about legendary singer Luther Vandross.

It’s a beautiful film, Griffin writes, but not without some bittersweetness. Despite his great talent and famous collaborators, Vandross never quite got the love life he deserved. 

“In an interview, Luther’s niece says that her uncle had an obligation on this Earth and fulfilled it, as if performing a cosmic task you never asked for should be, in itself, a great triumph,” Griffin writes. “But now that I know more about him than ever before, I find it so hard to listen to songs I once adored and not feel a deep sense of frustration that someone could be such a boundless fountain of love for others and still find themselves dying of thirst.”

Make sure to also read the latest installment of Best Beats, a roundup of our favorite local music. In this issue, Eze Jackson highlights sounds from DJAyyMello, Mighty Mark, Nina Gala, and Eyas. 

Sports analyst Reeta Hubbard gets us ready for the 2025 baseball season, Iya Osundara Ogunsina has your April tarotscopes, and we have images from Wide Angle Youth Media and a poem from Isabella Akilo, a participant in the group Writers in Baltimore Schools.

It’s a really packed issue, and we hope you enjoy it. 

The post Letter from the editor- Issue 58 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Baltimore City will soon be on the receiving end of a windfall of money by way of settlements the city reached with several companies over their roles in the city’s opioid epidemic. The people who will provide guidance on just what to do with the funds, writes Logan Hullinger, are those who know the impact of addiction firsthand.  

In this issue, Hullinger examines who the newly sworn-in members of Baltimore’s new Opioid Restitution Advisory Board are, and explains why their experience matters. 

“I believe that the people who are closer to the problem are the ones with solutions,” Ricarra Jones, political director for the 1199 Service Employees International Union and acting president of the Baltimore City NAACP, told Hullinger. “I lived in a home with family members who dealt with addiction for the majority of my childhood. It’s just something that is very personal to me — being a child and living through it and having lost family and friends to overdose and addiction.”

Also in this issue, Aaron Wright documents the heavy toll high utility bills are taking on city residents — and what elected officials want to do to provide some relief. 

“We are hearing from Baltimoreans all over our city — and really this region — that these rate increases are going to cause devastation for our people,” City Council President Zeke Cohen told Baltimore Beat. 

Bry Reed attended Enoch Pratt Free Library’s 37th Annual Booklovers’ Breakfast and heard acclaimed author Imani Perry discuss her latest book, “Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People,” along with, in Reed’s words, “the long arc of Black resistance movements that she believes offer guidance for surviving the present by haunting the past.”

“The efforts made at the lowest points [of Black suffering] made the gains of the Civil Rights Movement possible,” Perry told the crowd.  

This issue is packed with lots of other good stuff to read, too. Dominic Griffin reviews freewheeling sci-fi satire “Mickey 17,” our news roundup has bite-sized bits of news that you need to know, our photostory page captures images from a very special performance of “The Lion King,” and we have a new poem from Jaden Lemessy, a participant in Writers in Baltimore Schools.  

Thanks for reading!

The post Letter from the editor – Issue 57 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

“But what if God doesn’t want you covered in muck for a living,” our brilliant film critic Dominic Griffin writes in his review of the 2024 film “The Nickel Boys.” “How are you supposed to endure in a system that doesn’t want you to exist?”

The film, set in the 1960s, guides the viewer through the lives of two young African American men as they attempt to live their lives within the boundaries that race has already etched out for them.

Journalism is a majority-white industry that favors stories told in a way that anticipates a white audience. So, creating and maintaining a news outlet like Baltimore Beat — one that prioritizes an audience of color, an audience that cannot necessarily afford to pay for subscriptions at The Baltimore Sun or Baltimore Banner — has always felt harrowing. As the world shifts to the right and Donald Trump zeroes in on accommodations that make it slightly more attainable to support yourself if you are Black, or queer, or a woman (for example) the path forward feels even more precarious. 

The racism in this country that outlines all of our lives for me feels like a series of doors slammed shut. It feels like lost potential. The film, and Griffin’s writing about the film, captures that feeling exactly.  

Right now, when it feels like we are on the precipice of potentially losing so many important cultural artifacts, it feels especially important that we lift up the work of people like Evan Woodard. Woodard, a self-taught historian, is working hard to establish the Salvage Arc Museum. Through his organization, the Salvage Arc Foundation, he helps make Baltimore’s historic past a reality for us in the present day. He does this by putting little bits of everyday life on display — bits of pottery, soda bottles, and even leftover teeth from a slaughtered animal, for example. 

“In 2020, looking for a way to stave off boredom, he and his friends began to dig through privies: 19th-century outhouse vaults where glass items and household wares were commonly discarded,” Grace Hebron writes about Woodard and his mission. 

Angela N. Carroll chronicles Govans Presbyterian Church’s mission to correct some historic wrongs through art. A permanent installation by mixed media artist Ky Vassor depicts Black and brown people alongside the church’s historic stained-glass panels that only depict Biblical figures as white. 

“Govans’s work to address oppression began in 2021 with an internal review of their diversity, including the figurative representations presented in the art they display, the racial makeup of their ministers, and the focus of their ministry,” Carroll writes. 

Be sure to also check out photos from the Baltimore School for the Arts’s Black History Month showcase, the March tarotscopes, and our roundup of important news stories.

Thank you for reading. 

The post Letter from the editor- Issue 56 appeared first on Baltimore Beat.