Why Baltimore’s Protests Are So Peaceful

On Monday in Baltimore, Brandon Scott witnessed something that amazed him: members of the Baltimore Police Department taking a symbolic knee in sympathy with a cheering crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators in front of City Hall.

“As a kid growing up in Park Heights, it’s not something I thought I’d ever see,” says Scott, a 36-year-old West Baltimore native and City Council president. Scott, who has been running for mayor (he’s trailing former Mayor Sheila Dixon, but election results from Tuesday remain incomplete), has been a fixture at the protests against police violence that have sprung up citywide since the death of George Floyd on May 25. Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police has a particular resonance here: It echoes the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old West Baltimore man who died from injuries suffered in police custody, touching off days of unrest that included violence, arson and looting. Invoking the city’s name in the five years since has become a shorthand for urban chaos.