Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who represents part of Baltimore, said Wednesday that the anger that has been on display in the city this week could occur anywhere in the country.
“Baltimore can happen anywhere,” he said while appearing on CNN’s “New Day.” ‘You’ve got people look at us right now saying, “That will never happen in my community.’ But, yes it will. But you’ve got to have people that listen, and you’ve got to begin to act on it.”
{mosads}Cummings talked about how a lack of educational opportunities fuel anger in Baltimore’s poor and minority communities. Protesters in the city, where riots took place on Monday, have said that the police mistreat minority residents.
“Not just Baltimore, by the way, but the entire country needs to take a warning from this,” Cummings said earlier in the interview. “We have got to do better by our children.”
Tuesday night marked the beginning of a weeklong curfew in the city from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Though police briefly got into a standoff with some residents as the curfew began, by around midnight, the police had made only 10 arrests, and the streets were largely clear. Cummings helped encourage residents to go back to their homes as the curfew took effect.
It was a stark contrast with the events of Monday, when young people and adults burned cars and buildings, and looted some stores. In addition to being angry about systemic problems with Baltimore’s law enforcement, the riots came the same day as the funeral of Freddie Gray, a black 25-year-old who sustained a fatal spinal injury while in police custody.
But Cummings took issue with the characterization of the young people involved as “thugs,” a term that has been used by both Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) and President Obama.
“They are not thugs,” Cummings said. “We got some people who took advantage, opportunists who took advantage of a kind of chaotic situation. But that’s basically what it amounted to.”