By Police1 Staff
BALTIMORE — Baltimore’s police commissioner took the stage at a hip hop show to issue an apology to the crowd.
On April 18, Baltimore Police Commissioner Darryl De Sousa addressed a crowd attending a concert for hip-hop group Eric B & Rakim, the Washington Times reports. De Sousa apologized for how police treated black communities since the nation’s founding, according to the Baltimore Sun.
“I want to take about 20 seconds to apologize for all the things that the police have done dating back 200 years,” De Sousa said. “Two-hundred years ago, all the way to civil rights. All the way to the ‘80s where crack was prevalent in the cities and it affected disproportionately African-American men. All the way to the ‘90s. All the way to the 2000s when we had zero tolerance.”
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The commissioner received a round of boos and a few rounds of applause after his address.
Gene Ryan, the president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #3, said he didn’t believe the commissioner’s apology was appropriate.
“Law enforcement was created to protect and serve the citizenry despite race and that is what we strive to do, daily,” the union president wrote. “Are we perfect? No, of course not, but as a profession we work very hard to care for all of our citizens.”
Ryan added that he’s still willing to give De Sousa a chance.