How did trust between the police and the people in Baltimore collapse within the span of three generations?
Yesterday, we started telling you the story of Lavar Montray Douglas, known as Nook, an 18-year-old in Baltimore who was killed by the police in the spasm of violence that began after Freddie Gray died from injuries sustained while in police custody.
In Part 2, we visit Nookâs mother, Lashanda Douglas, known as Toby, in the house she moved into after her son was killed. She sits on the floor of her bedroom, partially covered by a large pile of clean clothes. She is grieving, and folding them and putting them away is soothing. We learn about her past. She graduated from high school with honors. She fled Baltimore to escape a bad boyfriend. But the city eventually lured her back.
Weâll also go back in time, to the Baltimore of Nookâs grandmother and great-grandmother, of flower pots and tidy blocks, when men were still part of families and middle-class jobs were plentiful. Weâll see that relations with the police werenât always bad. But job loss and drugs tore through the city like plagues. And the policing idea of zero tolerance, transplanted from New York City, created an entire generation of young men with criminal records.
Every day this week, weâll bring you a new chapter in Nookâs life and his familyâs search for answers about his death. If youâd like to start from the beginning, hereâs Part 1.