The Baltimore Sun on Monday reported that “juveniles” who were clashing with police in Baltimore were doing it to recreate a “purge.”
The newspaper said it was a reference to a 2013 movie, “The Purge.” Starring Ethan Hawke, the movie depicted a society in which, for 12 hours every year, all crime was legal and emergency services were suspended.
From the Sun:
According to a widely circulated flier, a high school “purge” was to take place at 3 p.m., starting at Mondawmin Mall and ending downtown. Such memes have been known to circulate regularly among city school students, based on a film “The Purge,” about what would happen if all laws were suspended.
The flier included an image of protesters smashing the windshield of a police car Saturday during a march spurred by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who suffered a spinal cord injury earlier this month after being arrested by city police.