On East Monument Street, between Luzerne Avenue and Rose Street, is the L Mart where Officer Arthur Williams’ beating of DaShawn McGrier began, and next to it, the marble steps where McGrier fell after being tackled by Williams, and the sidewalk where, his mouth bleeding, his face was pressed into the concrete. Above those steps there is a small sign that couldn’t be seen in that shaky, urgent viral clip, but it reads “Keep Off Steps.”
This strip of Monument Street in East Baltimore is often telling residents what they cannot do in ways big and small. It is a heavily policed, high-crime area and has been for decades, and the result is a neighborhood where police roam looking for trouble.
So last night, at the corner of Monument and Luzerne, McGrier’s family along with Black Leadership Organizing for Change (BLOC) briefly pushed back against all of the ways residents of Monument Street are told “no.”
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