WASHINGTON — As Baltimore begins the recovery process from a day and night of rioting Monday in the wake of the funeral of Freddie Gray, one video making the rounds of social media shows a woman taking peacemaking into her own hands.
Baltimore’s WMAR caught video of a mother taking her 16-year-old son to task on Monday, and getting him back in line, in no uncertain terms (warning — there’s some R-rated language in the clip):
“I’m a no-tolerant mother. Everybody that knows me, know I don’t play that,” Toya Graham, a single mother of six, told CBS News. “He said, when ‘I seen you,’ he said, ‘ma, my instinct was to run.’”
Graham said she saw her only son wearing a hoodie and mask amid the protesters demonstrating just hours after a funeral for Gray.
“At that point, I just lost it,” she said. “I was shocked, I was angry, because you never want to see your child out there doing that.”
Baltimore Police Chief Anthony Batts referred to the video in his Monday-night news conference, saying “I wish I had more parents who took charge of their kids tonight.”
Despite the excellence of this clip, WTOP reminds everyone that violence isn’t the answer. Usually.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
