In the past weeks, Baltimore, Maryland has exploded into a social and political hotbed. This was based on the incident where Freddie Gray was arrested by six police officers and died in custody after police ignored his pleas for treatment during a 45 minute long van ride.

Gray was arrested for carrying a knife that prosecutors, who charged the police officers, say was legal and should not have been the cause for arrest in the first place.

According to the Baltimore Sun, this is not the first time suspects had been injured or have had injuries ignored by police.

The report states that between July 2012 and April 2015, over 2,600 suspects were turned away from the jail partly because they had suffered injuries too severe to have in prison and partly because healthcare for seriously injured inmates is covered under the constitution.

The report also outlines the fact that most of these injuries were ignored by arresting officers.

Already in the last several years there have been several notable racial incidents where no convictions were made. These include the

• George Zimmerman incident with Trayvon Martin,
• Ferguson incident with Michael Brown,
• and the New York incident with Eric Garner.

These incidents have built on one another until tensions seemed to explode in Baltimore. Since then, the city has declared a state of emergency and rioting and looting has soon followed.