ont he morning of may 6, 2010, at around 1:45am, alexander s***l, david b***r, and I, Raymond Minniefield were walking south on broadway in fells pt, baltimore in search of an open eatery, at this time I had stopped to talk to a friend.

while i chatted david and alex countinued to walk and i informed them that i would indeed meet back up with them at the pizza place. after my 3-4 minute conversation i walked down broadway on the left side of broadway market to find david having a conversation with the police in front of hot tomatoes, in a crowd of about 10 bystanders.

I got closer to see what the commotion was and to my understanding the police officers singled David and Alex out and told them to move off of the sidewalk, david proceeded to ask the officer why he couldnt stand there “even if this is public property”. realizing that baltimore police officers generally do not like to be back talked, I tried to intervene in the situation by telling david that “it just wasn’t worth it” and that we should “just go get pizza” he tentatively agreed, and the female officer asked me and i quote “you got’em?”, I said “yes.” and began to walk dave back over towards the shop. as soon as i took two steps away the police officer got in daves face and “chest bumped” david off of the curb. at this time david said to the officer,” so now you’re going to assault me?” and with that the officer grabs daves wrist and forces him to the floor face first, skinning his hands and knees in the process.as soon as this happened dave yelled for me to record this happening which i quickly did on my blackberry.

as david was getting hancuffed Alex then walks over and in a state of sheer shock asks why david was being arrested. being ignored at first alex walked across the street to where they had dragged david and asked again, at that point without warning the female officer struck alex with a nightstick several times , and the male officer grabbed alex’s legs and body slammed him off of the curb where he standing. All of which is on video. at this point i had not been detained yet and i was continuing to record the events unfolding.

about 30 seconds after alex was slammed i was escorted up the street by two officers… i asked them why i couldnt record video being that it isnt illegal in anyway to take video, or stand on the street…not to mention that in arresting my friends instead of clearing the streets what they did was create a fiasco and a bigger crowd than there was to beign with. but alas, as i was escorted up the street i was compliant with all of the officers requests. it wasnt until i got to the designated area that i realized i needed to get daves carkeys so that i could prevent him from getting ticketed as well as arrested. when i approached the officers and calmly asked them if could go get daves keys from him so that i could pick him up from jail..

the officer quickly replied by pulling out his handcuffs and giving me 2 seconds to walk a block away. confused, I then asked why there would be any reason to arrest me, and then attempted to comply with the officers request, but as i turned around to walk away the officer grabbed my wrist and slapped cuffs on them.

as i was being cuffed the officers brought me to sit on the same curb as david and alex. they asked why i was arressted and i honestly had no explanation for them as i truly did not know what law i had broken. then one the officers but in and said “you were disobeying a lawful order!” whatever that means. while were sitting there for about 15 minutes, publicly humilated in front of about 100+ bar goers there were, from my count 13 officers standing around us and trying to intimidate us by swinging night sticks dangerously close to our faces and ridiculing us with racial slurs and other insults. I.e “fucking rabbi, dumbasses, etc.

once we were in the paddy wagon, i was told by the transport officer, “If you try to buck when we get there Im gonna knock you the fuck out” to which i replied with mischevieous smirk wishing a nigga would.

when we arrived at central bookings, we had to stand outside for about 30 mins. i assume that we got inside at about 3:00am… after a strip search and a medical questionaire, we were fingerprinted at around 4am…from the fingerprinting/mug shot room we were taken to a aproximately 4x9 cell which from the size of the one bench was probably made for 1 -2 people. we were in that cell with EIGHT men for a sustained period 4hrs at a tempature of 80+ muggy, stinky degrees. three men laid on the floor, three menn squeezed next to each other on the bench made for two and alex stood up in the front of the cell by the door, while I; the lucky one who was thrown into the cell last…had the honor of standing on the toilet and sitting on the attached sink… needless to say my feet and legs went numb after the first 20 minutes.

at 6 am we were served breakfast, which consisted of 3 slices of bread 2 boiled eggs, orange juice-ish substance, milk, bran flakes, sugar, and jelly;
Not bad.

at around 8 we were sent to a different cell which was bigger but by no means cleaner, cooler , or better smelling. the walls were sticky and slimy with grime from the countless criminals this room has held without a cleaning. this new cell which could have comfortably fit 8 was now holding close to 15 of us. after a while we then moved from there into yet another different cell.

one step closer to freedom. in that last cell the mood was light and about 14 of us were in there telling our war stories of what landed us in central bookings in the firstplace and not surprisingly NO ONE was in that room for commiting a crime against any person or property…it was all trespassing, possesion of green leafy substance, or in our case nothing. we were held against our will all night and in the end;charged with absolutely nothing and just let go… like fish. Baltimore PD is out here arresting ni**as for sport.

shame on u bmore shame on u