Bust a move

Clouds and on-and-off rain today, with highs in the low 80s. Tomorrow will be sunny, with highs in the mid 80s.

freddie

Judge Barry Williams will hear arguments today on whether trials for the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray should be moved out of Baltimore. The defense requested to move the trials away, believing that it’d be impossible to find fair juries in the city after months of intense public attention on the case.

The hearing comes a day after the city’s Board of Estimates approved a $6.4 million settlement to Gray’s family, accepting civil liability, but not acknowledging any criminal acts.

Like last week, activists plan to demonstrate downtown today, calling for the trials to remain in Baltimore.

protest

Last night, police arrested pastor Westley West on charges of attempting to incite a riot, malicious destruction of property, disorderly conduct, disturbance of the peace, false imprisonment, and failure to obey for an incident during last Tuesday’s downtown protest. As a group of protesters attempted to briefly block traffic along Pratt Street, police say West was “violent and hostile” in stopping a large red pickup truck, briefly putting his hands on the still-moving truck and allegedly slamming his bullhorn against the hood – here’s the helicopter video police provided of the moment – it’s not very sharp and here’s a sequence of street-level photos of West’s confrontation with the truck.

Baltimore Police spokesman, TJ Smith: “We hope people look at video of West and put one of their loved ones in the scenario that the person in that car was in.” Mildly inconvenienced?

education

After a week of grief from parents, teachers, and students about leaving non-air-conditioned schools open, Baltimore City Schools joined Baltimore County Public Schools is dismissing early yesterday. Cooler temps are in the long-term forecast.

business

Leaders from Johns Hopkins Hospital, MedStar Health, and the University of Maryland Medical System announced plans to hire 1,000 workers from Baltimore neighborhoods struggling with high rates of unemployment and poverty. The jobs would be mostly entry-level, but the initiative would also fund training programs for more skilled healthcare jobs. The hospitals are asking the state to approve a quarter-percent hospital rate increase to fund the program.