I never take anything personally.”įrom there, things further deteriorated, as audience members took turns insulting Barkley for either a perceived lack of knowledge of Baltimore and its policing issues or his declarations of his philanthropy or both. “I’m sorry for your loss,” said Barkley, then adding, “As far as you not liking me, it really doesn’t bother me. When Diane Butler, the mother of Tyrone West, a local man who died after a 2013 struggle with police following a traffic stop, told Barkley, “I don’t know you, I don’t like you,” chiding him for empathizing with police for having to make split-second decisions. “Did anybody say, ‘Man, I feel bad for their family’? ” asked Barkley. In one case, a San Antonio detective was killed while writing a ticket following a traffic stop. However, it was when Barkley expressed support for police that the mood of the audience, which had been on edge, turned openly hostile.īarkley criticized the audience, many of whom are community activists, saying he didn’t believe that any of them had expressed sympathy for the families of four police officers who were shot Sunday in separate incidents around the United States. “America discriminates against poor people, whether you’re white, black, Hispanic, whatever,” said Barkley.
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Always will,” but contended that American discrimination was more about economic empowerment than skin color. During his 48 hours in the city, he said, he met with the families of victims of police shootings, as well as doing ride-alongs with police.īarkley said he knew that “racism exists. With that as a prologue to Tuesday’s meeting at Southern Baptist Church, the site of a fire during the riots, Barkley spoke of his desire to “start a dialogue” between the police and the community.īarkley said he arrived in Baltimore on Monday. The report noted that those practices had a particular effect on poor, black residents who were much more likely to be stopped and arrested unnecessarily than other Baltimoreans. In August, the department issued a scathing 163-page report charging that Baltimore police had violated the constitutional rights of residents by using excessive force and by conducting illegal stops.
Mosby dropped charges against the remaining three officers, citing long odds in securing convictions against them.įollowing Gray’s death, the Justice Department launched an investigation into the patterns and practices of the city’s police department. Following the third acquittal in July, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Three of six officers who were charged in Gray’s death were acquitted in respective trials. There are few more contentious contemporary issues in America than the relationship between police and the African-American community.Īnd there are few cities where the sides are more divided than Baltimore, where the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray from spinal injuries sustained while he was in police custody set off riots and looting. And all he did was validate me.”īarkley and a TNT production crew came to Baltimore on Monday to film segments for The Race Card, a six-part program scheduled to air in 2017, in which Barkley is to engage communities on hot-button topics. What I came here to do tonight was to validate what I thought about him. “I don’t think he really came here to listen to the people,” said Gray-Hopkins, a retired banking executive who wore a button with her son’s likeness and brought posters with his picture. Her hopes were dashed, as the one-hour session quickly disintegrated into anger and disbelief from the audience aimed squarely at Barkley. I did not,” said Gray-Hopkins, whose 19-year-old son, Gary Hopkins Jr., died in 1999 when a Prince George’s County police officer shot him in the chest after a dance at a local firehouse. “I was hoping I would hear, see, feel something different. So she drove from her suburban Washington home to an East Baltimore church, wishing, perhaps, that the often-blunt speaking Hall of Fame NBA forward-turned television analyst might bring some badly needed light to the often incendiary topics. Through Facebook, Gray-Hopkins heard that Barkley would be hosting a town hall meeting Tuesday night on race, including a discussion on the relationship between police and the black community. With her mother’s heart, Marion Gray-Hopkins made the one-hour drive to Baltimore, hopeful that Charles Barkley would bring some insight to the issue of police brutality.
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