Tag: Baltimore

CNN Profiles Korean-American Family That Lost Their Business

| May 11, 2015

Via a reader tip comes this CNN report about a Korean family in Baltimore that lost their business due to the criminals that some in the media like to make excuses for by calling them protesters or rioters:

The day after rioting rocked parts of Baltimore, Matthew Chung stared in disbelief at a video clip circulating online, showing an older Korean woman sobbing as a man props her up to keep from collapsing.

According to the description, the woman was a shop owner who had just found out her store was destroyed by rioters.

That woman was his mother.

Confusion, anger and sadness gripped Chung as he started to realize that his parents’ wig and beauty store, which has been on Pratt Street for 30 years, was the target of looters on April 27. The protests that turned violent were in response to the death of Freddie Gray, an unarmed black man who suffered a spinal cord injury while in police custody.

Chung, 36, doesn’t usually visit Facebook — friends describe him as a private guy — but he felt compelled to write a passionate letter sharing his deep frustrations and sadness at seeing his parents’ livelihood destroyed.

“My parents came to this country with no money and worked hard to setup a little business that’s been in the same neighborhood in Baltimore City for over 25 years,” he wrote. “But just in one night everything they have worked for is now all gone.”  [CNN]

You can read the rest at the link, but I always find it interesting how people who can even speak the language can come to this country, open a business, make a living, and be productive citizens while many American born here cannot.

Korean-American Business Owners Particularly Hit Hard By Baltimore Riots

| May 7, 2015

Despite people doing damage and theft like this we are not supposed to call them thugs?  What else should this behavior be called?:

Image via the Korea Times.

Richard Sung Kang’s American dream shattered along with his liquor store’s window during the Baltimore riots earlier this week.

The 49-year-old Korean immigrant saw his liquor store and bar, the Oxford Tavern, wrecked by a group of violent rioters following the funeral of Freddie Gray, who died of a spinal injury he apparently received while in police custody. Despite Sung closing the front door, the looters smashed the window and plundered the establishment. Even the store’s ATM was torn out, leaving a gaping hole in the exterior wall of the building.

“This is America. I wanted to follow my dream and wanted to make something for myself,” Kang told the Associated Press. He added that it was only his first year of owning the business and was unsure of reopening the store, as it could mean taking on more debt and paying higher insurance premiums.

“The most important thing is, I have to move on,” Kang said as his locksmiths worked on his doors. “But is it better to rebuild and start again or give up and find some other place? I don’t know.”  [KoreAm Journal]

You can read the rest at the link, but according to the article 200 small businesses were unable to open after the riots with 40 Korean-American owned businesses among them. If many of these businesses do not re-open than that will just further cause economic problems in area already economically depressed in the first place.

CNN Anchor Forced To Apologize After Claiming US Veterans Caused Baltimore Riots

| April 30, 2015

Just when you thought things could not get any worse in Baltimore it does with CNN trying to push a narrative that US military veterans caused the riots:

In a pathetic suck-up interview with Democrat Congressman Elijah Cummins, Baldwin never once had the moral courage to ask the failed Baltimore City congressman if the left-wing policies ushered in by a half-century of a Democrat monopoly in Baltimore might have something to do with the city’s ills. Instead, she said of young military veterans who become police officers, “I love our nation’s veterans, but some of them are coming back from war, they don’t know the communities, and they are ready to do battle.”

The context was a discussion about increased training and retraining for the Baltimore police.  [Breitbart]

Does she even know how many people in the Baltimore police department are veterans?  Then those that are veterans how many have even deployed or seen combat?  You would think a news reporter would do some basic fact checking before making such a sweeping statement. Here is how she tried to initially rationalize what she said:

So if someone made a inappropriate sweeping statement about the rioters with no facts to substantiate it would she vocalize that as well?  Since then she has been forced to apologize on air for the remark.

What is ironic about this is that it is the military veterans in the National Guard that had to come in to restore order.