Civil rights leader, the Rev. Al Sharpton, said Monday he plans to visit Baltimore this week to help push police for answers in the death of Freddie Gray.
Sharpton said he also wants to plan a two-day march in May from Baltimore to Washington, expressing frustration in the lack of answers into Gray’s death. The 25-year-old man died April 19, a week after he suffered spinal cord injuries while in police custody.
Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts has said police expect to present a report on Gray’s death to the state’s attorney’s office by Friday. It’s unclear when the report will be made public.
“I have been asked by many in the Baltimore area since day one to get involved in the justice for Freddie Gray movement,” Sharpton said in a statement.
Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, said he’s discussed the situation on his radio and TV shows and been in touch with activists in Baltimore, but he’s resisted becoming personally involved. That changed, he said, when he learned that the report may not be released on Friday.
“I am saddened and disappointed that there now may not be a report released on May 1,” he said. “It is concerning to me that a deadline that the police themselves had set and announced they have now conveniently changed.”
Sharpton said the march from Baltimore to Washington is designed to call attention to Gray — as well as others before him, including Walter Scott, who was shot by a police officer in North Charleston, S.C. — to Loretta Lynch, the incoming U.S. attorney general.
“Ms. Lynch, in her new role that we all supported, must look and intervene in these cases,” Sharpton said. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Sharpton said he’s been invited to Baltimore by the Rev. Westley West of Faith Empowered Ministries and former state Sen. Larry Young, who hosts a radio call-in show on WOLB.
Fellow civil rights leader, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, said he also has been invited to Baltimore to push for justice in Gray’s case.
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