Neighbor Hangs Black Figures in Baltimore to Intimidate Freddie Gray Protestors – Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
After protests and riots erupted in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, black figures were hung from trees in the city to intimidate protestors.
The Truth:
Black figures were hung from trees in Baltimore during protests over Freddie Gray’s death, but the purpose of the display was not to intimidate black protestors.
A photo of the display went viral on Twitter on April 27, 2015, as protests and riots swept across Baltimore. Residents were protesting the death of Freddie Gray, who died while in police custody earlier in the month.
Baltimore resident Loring Cornish said in a video that he had hung the black figures along Fulton Avenue to symbolize the relationship between police and the city’s residents:
“Police are still lynching us today; instead they’re using bullets and the law to make it legal. So I decided to hang as many of these as I could from my tree because I don’t know what else to do, but this is what I can do. It may not be much, but this is a start, so I put them all over my trees in front of my house.”
But photos of the black figures hanging from trees along Fulton Avenue in Baltimore quickly took on a different meaning. Twitter users posted the photo with captions that said things like, “In Baltimore, a white neighbor hanged black figures that look like black people hanging from trees.”