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Police Chief Who Pledged Reforms Fired Amid Crime Spike

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In this April 30, 2015, file photo, Baltimore Police Department Commissioner Anthony Batts listens as Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis speaks at a news conference, in Baltimore. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced the firing of Batts in a news release Wednesday, July 8. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

In this April 30, 2015, file photo, Baltimore Police Department Commissioner Anthony Batts listens as Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis speaks at a news conference, in Baltimore. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced the firing of Batts in a news release Wednesday, July 8. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

JULIET LINDERMAN, Associated Press

BALTIMORE (AP) — Less than three years ago, Anthony Batts was hand-picked by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to combat crime and reform a troubled law enforcement department in one of America’s most violent cities.

On Wednesday, Batts was fired as police commissioner amid the worst crime spike in the city since the 1970s and plummeting morale among officers who complained their boss was failing to provide the support and leadership they needed to do their jobs.

“We cannot continue to debate the leadership of the department,” Rawlings-Blake told a news conference she called to announce her decision. “We cannot continue to have the level of violence we’ve seen in recent weeks in this city.”

Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, who has only been with the department since January, will serve as interim commissioner, Rawlings-Blake said.

Batts and Rawlings-Blake are African-American, as is the city’s top prosecutor, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. Davis is white. Sixty percent of the city’s population is black, while the police department is 48 percent African-American. Mosby said her office has already met with Davis and she looks forward to working with him.

The firing comes less than three months after the city erupted in riots following the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in April of injuries he received in police custody. Six police officers have been criminally charged in Gray’s death. Gray died April 19. Most of the unrest took place on April 27.

The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a civil rights review of the department and Batts announced Tuesday that an outside organization would review the police response to the unrest.

But the Baltimore police union released a scathing post-mortem report Wednesday accusing Batts and other top brass of instructing officers not to engage with rioters and to allow looting and destruction to occur.

“The officers repeatedly expressed concern that the passive response of the Baltimore police commanders to the civil unrest allowed the disorder to grow into full-scale rioting,” Gene Ryan, president of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, wrote in the report. “The riots were preventable.”

In the weeks after the riots, homicides and other violent crimes spiked and arrests began to plummet as word spread that police officers were afraid that they, too, would be charged with crimes if something went wrong during the course of their duties.

Baltimore’s homicide total this year is 156, according to police. That’s a 48 percent increase compared with the same time last year. Shootings have increased 86 percent.

In the latest example, gunmen jumped out of two vans and fired at a group of people a few blocks from an urban university campus Tuesday night, killing three people.

The startling spike stands in stark contrast to Batts’ promise to fight violent crime when he arrived in Baltimore in 2012.

At a swearing-in ceremony in November of that year, Batts pledged to “continue our progress at reducing violent crime and holding accountable those that perpetrate violence in our good streets.”

Batts took over from Fred Bealefeld, who resigned after five years as commissioner and 31 in the Baltimore Police Department. Batts too was a veteran officer, though new to the city of Baltimore: He spent three decades in California, two as commissioner of the embattled Oakland Police Department and seven as commissioner of the Long Beach police department, where he’d served as a law enforcement officer for 20 years.

“I worked closely with Commissioner Batts and always found him open to my ideas for reforming the department,” said Baltimore City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young. “He was engaging, experienced, and served our city to the best of his ability.”

But Young said that when he talked recently with citizens and police officers, “it became increasingly clear that a growing lack of confidence in the direction of our city’s crime-fighting strategy had the potential to severely damage the long-term health of our city.”

The Rev. Jamal Bryant, who delivered the fiery eulogy at Gray’s funeral, called Batts’ firing a first step toward healing police-community relations.

“It’s no secret there’s been great strain and stress since the uprising,” he said. “It became not just a disconnect between police and the community but between the police and their commissioner.”

In the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of West Baltimore, where Gray was arrested, residents praised the mayor’s decision.

Keonna Stokes, 22, said she was glad to see Batts removed from his position, and hopes a new commissioner will have a lower tolerance for police misconduct.

“The police wouldn’t do the things they do if the commissioner didn’t allow it,” she said. “He should have been fired. We call the police when we really need them, when people hurt us. But now we don’t call them, because they hurt us. If they didn’t, Freddie would still be here.”

Batts’ contract with the city paid him $190,000 and was to run through June 2020. It includes a provision for a severance payment equal to his annual salary if he is terminated without cause.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Arts and Culture

In ‘Affrilachia: Testimonies,’ Puts Blacks in Appalacia on the Map

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Author Chris Aluka. Photo courtesy of Chris Aluka.
Author Chris Aluka. Photo courtesy of Chris Aluka.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez

An average oak tree is bigger around than two people together can reach.

That mighty tree starts out with an acorn the size of a nickel, ultimately growing to some 80 feet tall, with a canopy of a hundred feet or more across.

And like the new book, “Affrilachia” by Chris Aluka Berry (with Kelly Elaine Navies and Maia A. Surdam), its roots spread wide and wider.

Affriclachia is a term a Kentucky poet coined in the 1990s referring to the Black communities in Appalachia who are similarly referred to as Affrilachians.

In 2016, “on a foggy Sunday morning in March,” Berry visited Affrilachia for the first time by going the Mount Zion AME Zion Church in Cullowhee, North Carolina. The congregation was tiny; just a handful of people were there that day, but a pair of siblings stood out to him.

According to Berry, Ann Rogers and Mae Louise Allen lived on opposite sides of town, and neither had a driver’s license. He surmised that church was the only time the elderly sisters were together then, but their devotion to one another was clear.

As the service ended, he asked Allen if he could visit her. Was she willing to talk about her life in the Appalachians, her parents, her town?

She was, and arrangements were made, but before Barry could get back to Cullowhee, he learned that Allen had died. Saddened, he wondered how many stories are lost each day in mountain communities where African Americans have lived for more than a century.

“I couldn’t make photographs of the past,” he says, “but I could document the people and places living now.”

In doing so he also offers photographs that he collected from people he met in ‘Affrilachia,’ in North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, at a rustic “camp” that was likely created by enslaved people, at churches, and in modest houses along highways.

The people he interviewed recalled family tales and community stories of support, hardship, and home.

Says coauthor Navies, “These images shout without making a sound.”

If it’s true what they say about a picture being worth 1,000 words, then “Affrilachia,” as packed with photos as it is, is worth a million.

With that in mind, there’s not a lot of narrative inside this book, just a few poems, a small number of very brief interviews, a handful of memories passed down, and some background stories from author Berry and his co-authors. The tales are interesting but scant.

For most readers, though, that lack of narrative isn’t going to matter much. The photographs are the reason why you’d have this book.

Here are pictures of life as it was 50 years or a century ago: group photos, pictures taken of proud moments, worn pews, and happy children. Some of the modern pictures may make you wonder why they’re included, but they set a tone and tell a tale.

This is the kind of book you’ll take off the shelf, and notice something different every time you do. “Affrilachia” doesn’t contain a lot of words, but it’s a good choice when it’s time to branch out in your reading.

“Affrilachia: Testimonies,” by Chris Aluka Berry with Kelly Elaine Navies and Maia A. Surdam

c.2024, University of Kentucky Press, $50.00.

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Black History

Alice Parker: The Innovator Behind the Modern Gas Furnace

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1895, Alice Parker lived during a time when women, especially African American women, faced significant social and systemic barriers. Despite these challenges, her contributions to home heating technology have had a lasting impact.

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In 1919, Alice Parker patented the design for a gas-powered central heating system, a groundbreaking invention. Image courtesy of U.S. Patent Office.
In 1919, Alice Parker patented the design for a gas-powered central heating system, a groundbreaking invention. Image courtesy of U.S. Patent Office.

By Tamara Shiloh

Alice Parker was a trailblazing African American inventor whose innovative ideas forever changed how we heat our homes.

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1895, Parker lived during a time when women, especially African American women, faced significant social and systemic barriers. Despite these challenges, her contributions to home heating technology have had a lasting impact.

Parker grew up in New Jersey, where winters could be brutally cold. Although little is documented about her personal life, her education played a crucial role in shaping her inventive spirit. She attended Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., where she may have developed her interest in practical solutions to everyday challenges.

Before Parker’s invention, most homes were heated using wood or coal-burning stoves. These methods were labor-intensive, inefficient, and posed fire hazards. Furthermore, they failed to provide even heating throughout a home, leaving many rooms cold while others were uncomfortably warm.

Parker recognized the inefficiency of these heating methods and imagined a solution that would make homes more comfortable and energy-efficient during winter.

In 1919, she patented her design for a gas-powered central heating system, a groundbreaking invention. Her design used natural gas as a fuel source to distribute heat throughout a building, replacing the need for wood or coal. The system allowed for thermostatic control, enabling homeowners to regulate the temperature in their homes efficiently.

What made her invention particularly innovative was its use of ductwork, which channeled warm air to different parts of the house. This concept is a precursor to the modern central heating systems we use today.

While Parker’s design was never fully developed or mass-produced during her lifetime, her idea laid the groundwork for modern central heating systems. Her invention was ahead of its time and highlighted the potential of natural gas as a cleaner, more efficient alternative to traditional heating methods.

Parker’s patent is remarkable not only for its technical innovation but also because it was granted at a time when African Americans and women faced severe limitations in accessing patent protections and recognition for their work. Her success as an inventor during this period is a testament to her ingenuity and determination.

Parker’s legacy lives on in numerous awards and grants – most noticeably in the annual Alice H. Parker Women Leaders in Innovation Award. That distinction is given out by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce to celebrate outstanding women innovators in Parker’s home state.

The details of Parker’s later years are as sketchy as the ones about her early life. The specific date of her death, along with the cause, are also largely unknown.

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Activism

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Speaks on Democracy at Commonwealth Club

Based on his first speech as House minority leader, “The ABCs of Democracy” by Grand Central Publishing is an illustrated children’s book for people of all ages. Each letter contrasts what democracy is and isn’t, as in: “American Values over Autocracy”, “Benevolence over Bigotry” and “The Constitution over the Cult.”

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: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs Council on Dec. 2. Photo by Johnnie Burrell. Book cover: "The ABCs of Democracy" by Hakeem Jeffries.
: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs Council on Dec. 2. Photo by Johnnie Burrell. Book cover: "The ABCs of Democracy" by Hakeem Jeffries.

By Linda Parker Pennington
Special to The Post

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries addressed an enthusiastic overflow audience on Monday at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, launching his first book, “The ABCs of Democracy.”

Based on his first speech as House minority leader, “The ABCs of Democracy” by Grand Central Publishing is an illustrated children’s book for people of all ages.

Each letter contrasts what democracy is and isn’t, as in: “American Values over Autocracy”, “Benevolence over Bigotry” and “The Constitution over the Cult.”

Less than a month after the election that will return Donald Trump to the White House, Rep. Jeffries also gave a sobering assessment of what the Democrats learned.

“Our message just wasn’t connecting with the real struggles of the American people,” Jeffries said. “The party in power is the one that will always pay the price.”

On dealing with Trump, Jeffries warned, “We can’t fall into the trap of being outraged every day at what Trump does. That’s just part of his strategy. Remaining calm in the face of turmoil is a choice.”

He pointed out that the razor-thin margin that Republicans now hold in the House is the lowest since the Civil War.

Asked what the public can do, Jeffries spoke about the importance of being “appropriately engaged. Democracy is not on autopilot. It takes a citizenry to hold politicians accountable and a new generation of young people to come forward and serve in public office.”

With a Republican-led White House, Senate, House and Supreme Court, Democrats must “work to find bi-partisan common ground and push back against far-right extremism.”

He also described how he is shaping his own leadership style while his mentor, Speaker-Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, continues to represent San Francisco in Congress. “She says she is not hanging around to be like the mother-in-law in the kitchen, saying ‘my son likes his spaghetti sauce this way, not that way.’”

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