Nicholas Goldberg: Jeering, screaming and upending the City Council is arrogant, irresponsible and ineffective
By
Nicholas Goldberg, The Baltimore Sun
A little over two weeks ago the City Council voted unanimously to condemn a man’s words with threats and violence.
The man who was targeted, Michael Richard, lived next to the city’s Jewish community, a vibrant, influential entity on the East Coast. The man’s mother was a member of the congregation – he was an ordained minister. As was their practice, they all gathered for services.
After the services, Richard usually invited a number of colleagues, students and friends to meet him at his parents’ house. They often sat around the table in his parents’ house on a Sunday night for appetizers and a discussion of the day’s events. They had a lot to talk about.
But one of Richard’s friends, the man who had been sitting next to him at the service, on that Sunday night in the early spring of 2015, began to yell loudly and repeatedly throughout the dinner, in one direction at Richard, and in another he moved on to Michael’s sister Mary.
When Mary tried to intervene, the man began to scream and hit her over the head with a glass. She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. There in the bedroom the screaming and yelling continued.
Michael tried to help his sister, but the man began to kick him in the head and punched him in the stomach.
The police were called.
Michael and his sister were terrified as she told the police what had happened. Police officers took the women to the hospital. The man, whom she later identified as Michael’s cousin, remained at the scene. He was arrested and charged with fourth-degree assault and related charges, the charges he pleaded guilty to being guilty of resisting arrest.
The charges were later dropped.