The Sun's outstanding article about the new youth center made for encouraging reading ("Freddie Gray youth center, mentors aim to protect Baltimore children this summer," June 21). However, why name it after Freddie Gray?
There were so many more worthy people who are more deserving. Mary Dobkin, for one, ran youth recreation teams for the underprivileged in Baltimore City (mostly in East Baltimore) for almost her entire life. She would show up in a wheelchair and watch her teams play ball. I sure wish the Ravens and the Orioles could secretly set up trust funds to keep recreation centers running all over town forever. Based on the figures you ran in the article, that would be a pittance for them. Oddly, it's the poorer people who still donate the most. There are many others who contributed to what was good in Baltimore whose selection would have also merited mention as well.
But Freddie Gray? He's an individual who may have sold drugs to children on the corners. Who is the next recreation center going to be named after, John Dillinger, maybe Bonnie and Clyde? Those folks died at the hands of police (unnecessarily) as well, just like Freddie Gray. They were probably a little more dangerous than Freddie, but you get the point.
What happened to Freddie Gray was brutal, but to pay such homage to an unreformed petty criminal is over the top, don't you think?
George Hammerbacher, Baltimore