Background:
In a late-night press conference, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts blamed the violence in his city on high school students who “thought it was cute to throw cinder blocks at police.”
An admittedly exhausted Batts claimed that a meeting took place between various gangs including the Bloods and the Crips, in which members pledged to kill police officers following Freddie Gray’s funeral earlier today.
However, the police chief insisted the main instigators of today’s unrest were local “youthful residents” who “came out of a local high school” and “outnumbered and outflanked” police.
Batts updated on the condition of six officers who were seriously injured in the riots, saying they were all expected to recover.
“Take control of your kids,” Batts urged parents in closing. “This is our city. Let’s make a difference.”
At least one woman took charge. She smacked the fuck out of her punk azz son for joining in the mayhem:
A Baltimore mother is being hailed for doing her part to quell the violence on after a video of her smacking her son upside the head when she spotted him rioting and throwing rocks at police emerged on Monday.
The unidentified mom recognized her son even though he was wearing a black ski mask that covered much of his face.
When the mother spotted her son, who was also dressed in all black, on TV throwing rocks she went after him like a heat-seeking missile.
The encounter, which was captured by WMAR. didn’t take long but it certainly looked painful for the regretful rioter.
Blows rained down on the son’s head as he struggled to get away while a large crowd looked on.
He eventually was able to separate himself from his mother, but not before she had gotten the mask off of his face.
As he walked away from the scene, his mother trailed after him while carrying a pink cellphone.
The video did not fly under the radar on social media either and many Twitter users began re-posting it and saying the woman was the ‘Mom of the Year’.
One woman wrote: ‘That MOM in Baltimore that Smacked her kid for Looting, deserves MOM of the YEAR. Other MOMS should be doing the same!’
Another woman said: ‘Baltimore doesn’t need the National Guard – they need more parents like this one!’
Fox business reporter Charles V Payne chimed in: ‘Mom of the year in Baltimore… my mother would have did same thing…’
A man joked: ‘Make sure it’s ok with your parents before rioting.’
She’s been identified as Toya Graham, a single mom with six children:
The Baltimore mother caught on video repeatedly smacking her son after catching him participating in rioting in Baltimore told CBS News that she was only concerned about protecting him.
He gave me eye contact. And at that point, you know, not even thinking about cameras or anything like that. That’s my only son and at the end of the day I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray,” Toya Graham said, referencing the 25-year-old man who died after mysteriously sustaining severe spinal injuries in police custody earlier in the month. His death has sparked protests throughout the city, with tensions boiling over Monday.
Graham told CBS News she launched into action after spotting her 16-year-old son Michael wearing a hoodie and mask amid the protesters.“At that point, I just lost it,” said Graham. “I was shocked, I was angry, because you never want to see your child out there doing that.”
Graham, a single mom with six children, denounced the vandalism and violence against police officers. She said rioting in Baltimore is no way to go about getting justice for Freddie Gray and that she doesn’t want that life for her son.
KAPAOW!!
“There’s some days that I’ll shield him in the house just so he won’t go outside and I know that I can’t do that for the rest of my life,” said Graham. “I’m a no-tolerant mother. Everybody that knows me, know I don’t play that.”
It’s that reputation that made her son wince the second he saw her.
“He knew he was in trouble,” said Graham. “He said when ‘I seen you,’ he said, ‘ma, my instinct was to run.'”
Graham says after she got her son home they both watched news coverage of the demonstrations and riots on television. As images of her reaction started to go viral, Graham says comments started appearing on her son’s Facebook page, many in support of her.
“Friends and everybody making comments and saying you know, you shouldn’t be mad at your mother, you should give her a hug,” said Graham.
Graham hopes the incident will serve as a teachable moment for her son.
“And by him seeing everything what’s going on I just hope, I’m not sure, but I hope that he understands the seriousness of what was going on last night.”
The video has been widely circulated as people look for answers to the violence, and it even drew the attention of Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts.
“I wish I had more parents who took charge of their kids tonight,” he said, according to CBS Baltimore.
Graham told CBS News she thinks the situation wouldn’t have been as bad if there were more mothers out there monitoring their sons. But she acknowledged there are some circumstances that can prevent moms from from doing that.
“We don’t know where those mothers are at, a lot of mothers have to provide for their children,” said Graham. “You can talk blue in your face to your children, but at the end of the day they gonna make their own decisions. As parents we just have to follow through to make sure that’s where they supposed to be at.”
Good for her. If more parents did this, there would be less crime and violence in the streets of their communities.
Her situation is not good. She’s a single mother who is struggling with 6 children and just lost her job.
Rush Limbaugh sums it up:
We celebrate single motherhood. Take a look at this mother. Her name escapes me at the moment. The one who saw her son on TV in Baltimore in the riot with a brick in his hand, left her house went out and found him and slapped him upside the head and brought him back inside, and she was the hero. She’s been all over the network morning shows. She was on CBS This Morning.
……The point is this woman is being celebrated as a hero. This woman has six kids, no husband, no job. She just moved into a new house. She has no means of support. She’s trapped. This is a woman who’s obviously trying. She is trapped!… She is trapped in a city. She’s trapped by a political party.
I’m not saying she has no responsibility for the situation she’s in. Don’t misunderstand. But clearly this woman wants a different life, wants a different way. She’s being celebrated as a hero, which is a good sign. But nevertheless her circumstances are sad, infuriating. Six kids, no husband. We don’t know how many fathers were involved or how many men were involved. No job, no prospect for a job. The economy is stalled. The growth rate is less than zero.
It’s an absolute disaster that is happening in way too many parts of this country, and single motherhood is one of the big selling points of the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party has celebrated, lionized, promoted single motherhood. Why? Because the Democrat Party gets to be the dad. The Democrat Party running the government — state, federal, local, you name it — gets to be the husband, with no concern for what it is doing to the people involved. It’s destroying them.
It’s destroying their dignity; it’s destroying their future; it is entrapping them into lives of servitude and no dignity, and dependence on a system that has proven to be ineffective in supporting them and helping them. How many years has this been going on? The evidence is in. It doesn’t work. It’s destroying things. It’s destroying cities, it’s destroying people. Yet the foundation, the building block for good, solid futures — at least the opportunity for one — the American family, is under assault by the Democrat Party.
For the time being at least, she saved her kid’s life. If he learns from this, he’ll grow up to be a more responsible person. If not, he’ll end up in prison or dead.
“He could be my son” no, I mean, etc……