Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on Friday reminded Balitmore that the police need the community and the community needs the police in an impassioned speech celebrating the prosecution of six officers in the death of Freddie Gray.
Twenty-five-year old Gray died of injuries sustained while in police custody. On Friday, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that she would be bringing charges against the police involved in Gray’s arrest.
Cummings lauded Mosby’s character and said he would have honored any decision she’d made, but rejoiced that he felt Gray had been “seen.”
“Did anybody see this man?” Cummings asked. “Did they see this man who was a mother’s child? Did they see this man who was just trying to get through life? Did they see him as a human being? And I have come here today to thank god that Marilyn Mosby and her team saw him, saw him.”
“The process has started.That’s the main thing, the process has started,” Cummings continued.
Cummings also addressed the sense of desperation that many feel when they believe the system isn’t there to help them.
“When I thought about Freddie, I could not help but think about my own childhood,” Cummings said. “And I looked at him in that casket, and I said to myself, here was a young man just trying to exist, trying to exist. So hopefully now with this, our city can begin to heal, to come together, policemen will look and women will look at their jobs from a different stand-point and realize that they are here to protect and serve and by the way, and that our community must respect them but it’s got to be a mutual respect thing.”
“The police need us as a community and we need them,” Cummings said in closing.
