Marchers near the Baltimore police department's Western District police station on Wednesday.
Alex Brandon / AP
Baltimore's police union on Wednesday likened ongoing protests against the death of Freddie Gray to a "lynch mob," drawing sharp criticism from the victim's family and from people nationwide.
"While we appreciate the right of our citizens to protest and applaud the fact that, to date, the protests have been peaceful, we are very concerned about the rhetoric of the protests. In fact, the images seen on television look and sound much like a lynch mob in that they are calling for the immediate imprisonment of these officers," wrote Gene Ryan, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3.
Gray, a 27-year-old unarmed black man, was taken into custody on April 12. Video footage showed he was loaded into a police van while conscious but injured.
Police said when Gray was unloaded from the van he was not conscious and has suffered a spinal injury. He died one week later.
An attorney for Gray's family told the Baltimore Sun:
"We've been the victims of the lynching and now we're the lynch mob?" he asked. "The president of the police union called peaceful protests and the anger at the death of a man to severe and unfathomable injuries while in police custody a lynch mob? It doesn't get more insensitive or insulting than that. These remarks illustrate why black people and the police don't get along."
Murphy called for "an immediate apology and a retraction."
Others took to social media to express their disbelief:
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1yWc0Yg
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