October 6th, Baltimore Circuit Court, 100 North Calvert Street, from 3:00 - 5:00 pm.

Photographs by Larry Cohen

In August, 2021, while I was forming the itinerary for my East coast actions, I google-mapped the police station in Baltimore county where my dad used to work.  I rationalized that visiting this spot digitally wouldn’t be a big deal.  When I was a kid, we’d only visited the station once to do a “fingerprinting session.”  My dad drove us over in our 70’s brown-paneled station wagon, and when my siblings and I arrived, we stood in a line together. We waited with great anticipation for this strange ritual meant for jailbirds. Each one of us took turns stepping forward, pressing our fingers into the ink, staining every digit thoroughly. Then we were moved forward again towards the paper, baby steps. As our fingers were being pressed firmly into the smooth, brilliant surface of the white card stock, I watched the organic shapes of my identity rise like a chrystallized painting, blue. I examined the textured pattern of my fingers which only a moment ago were invisible, and saw the lush beauty of my hands. It felt magical, and big! Each one of us were unique, and we would leave our residue in this world. This was the fun part of being a criminal I thought as an eight year old.  I hadn’t recalled that event for a long, long time, and I don’t remember going back to that police station ever again.

I typed in the address of my father’s station in Baltimore, and hit return.  I zoomed in via Satellite, pulled the little yellow man from the corner of the screen and dropped him on the street near the parking lot.  My body came forward towards the image squinting at the pixilation.  As soon as the digital rendering became clearer, I felt a dreadful aversion suddenly arise in my chest even as I was 3,000 miles away.  In a singular moment, I became aware it would be impossible for me to visit that police station with my cape.  While I have felt the edginess of bringing my art work to many other places, coming here would have been like jumping off a cliff. 

In October, when I arrived with my photographer in the downtown area, I didn’t have a particular idea on where to bring my cloak. Possibilities included a downtown police station, a central plaza, or the Courthouse. In the late afternoon, in the middle of the week, Baltimore was nearly empty. Not that other cities haven’t had the same feel, but I felt shock-surprised, and then saddened by the seemingly dead air. I knew Baltimore as a young woman when I’d run through the harbor, danced at the Fells Point clubs, and saw Ska and Punk bands at the Marble bar. I’d even met a youngish John Waters at the Club Charles. All of that was barely a memory, but there it was arising in this moment as I looked around through the car window. The Courthouse area seemed to have the most pedestrians walking around, but even then, it was truly low key. We parked the car, and made our way over.

I laid my cape down on the wide walkway and within fifteen seconds, a Black police officer came right over and told me, “To get off the steps of the Courthouse.” There was plenty of room on the steps for passersby to enter and leave, but it didn’t matter. He did not want me there.

He signaled that we should go somewhere else.

I told the officer that the sidewalk was public space and therefore my being near the bottom step, but not on it, was perfectly legal. Pedestrians had plenty of room to walk around me.

I got under the cape.

A white cop showed up who was more aggressive. He said, “If you don’t get off the sidewalk, we will arrest you. Get your handcuffs out.” he said to the Black cop. “We’ll take your cape as evidence.” This implied that they could confiscate and/or destroy my hand-embroidered cloak in whatever fashion they wished.

I couldn’t risk it. I got up and left and I was angry.

Across the street, just 15 feet away was Battle Monument Park. I moved myself to this spot because I could remain close to the Courthouse with the hope that passersby from the state building would see me and walk over. However, the park is actually a wide kind of meridian strip enclosed by traffic and it would take a little more effort by pedestrians to reach me. Right in front of me, towards the sky was a monument represented by a marble statuesque woman. She was the symbol of victory in the battle against the British at North Point. How funny and odd it was to see her in a flowing toga representing triumph. I almost chuckled. I continued my dogged kneel-in. I tried to focus on my breath, but I was mostly beset by disappointment, and frustration. I started seeing pedestrians walking along the courthouse entrance, but none came over to visit me.

Some pedestrians had glanced over or viewed my cape from a distance.

Eventually one of the police officers came over to see what my cape was about. I didn’t know how to respond to his presence. He said, “I’m sorry for your story,” or something to that effect. We talked for a very short time, and he conveyed some ideas about the general problems of domestic violence, but it seemed he hadn’t absorbed the content of my cloak with much depth. Later on, he said to me, “Alright babe, you take care.”

I kneeled for the rest of the time, but it felt bleak. My hope that passing pedestrians across the street would become interested in the shape of my art deflated completely. I was mostly invisible now and it felt like the cops had won.

I was also witnessing a man displaying very distressing behavior inside the small park. He had a mid-size backpack with him, and he had set it down on the granite podium. He began to pull things out of it one by one, and placing them with exquisite care into a methodical order. And yet his physical body was strained and sometimes twisted by jerky reaches. Then, he re-arranged the items into a different sequence. He appeared to be hyper-vigilant about the hierarchy of their placement, and how they should be put back into the backpack. He put everything into the backpack, then he pulled them out again and re-created a different sequence of items on the granite in the same manner. He did this over and over again with a sense of urgency. Putting things in, and pulling them out. It was painful to see him overtaken by an unrelenting act of compulsion for the whole of two hours. He seemed lost in his world. I felt a deep sadness, and helplessness.

My stillness was now starting to feel like a freeze state, and I felt my lack of power as I failed to make any connection. I also thought about the killing of Freddy Gray, and I’d learned that the crew of cops who murdered him involved three white male officers, and three black officers including one woman. The “look” of policing has changed, but the cruelties of enforcement continue to be exceedingly heavy handed. The arrest of Freddie Gray was “wrongful” as it turned out, and all of the cops had nothing but contempt for his humanity. Freddy Gray had pleaded for help several times, (he couldn’t breath) and they ignored him entirely.

The “justice” system, in general, is often punishing, uses “corrections, and discipline” (more often a form of torture) to keep people in-line. Many of the premises, and therefore policies of policing are often tied to the ruthless need for a moneyed America to keep so many of us in pre-determined boxes. Determined by birth, income, race, sex, and gender; hence racial - profiling is rampant, the poor are disregarded, and women who claim they’ve suffered from sexual assault are often not believed. With so many negative feedback loops in our society, it’s no wonder we have the highest prison population of any country in the world. The man in front of me suffered from things I did not understand, and he seemed to be entirely alone.  It was hard to witness his pain, but even more, I knew that calling the police would be the very worst idea in trying help him. The bleak feeling I’d felt at the beginning of my kneel-in became more profound. 

I stayed with my commitment to be there until 5:00.  I made intermittent attempts to let go of my stories, any ideas of justice, and all the rest.  I felt both the futility of that endeavor, and yet, there were tiny moments of relief.  My breath was moving in and out. I was mostly warm, and I was here, alive and well.  The revolution of my breath has taught me that nature is the greatest power, and we are of it. There is so much I do not understand. I cannot possibly know what the viewer from far away may be seeing, or what the cop who seemed so nonchalant is actually feeling.  Those moments are only one of a continuum or a web of connections. My practice of kneeling, of meditation has taught me that all things change. I remembered my fingerprints being taken as a child. It came to me that every residue of experience is wildly unique, and mutable, and sometimes we are filled with wonder.

James Baldwin had spoken of this after the murder of Martin Luther King which he said forced him into a “judgment of human life… which he had always been reluctant to make.” In “No Name On The Street,” he’d written, “Incontestably, alas, most people are not, in action, worth very much; and yet, every human being is an unprecedented miracle. One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they’ve become.” Baldwin is profoundly astute in his assessment of what it means to have faith, while having a deep skepticism of how our actions and the actions of others may be futile towards a further good. We cannot know the larger reverberations.