Mike Boyd and Jim Mingle are detectives for the Baltimore City Police Department assigned to West Baltimore, which has seen 15 killings this year, including a triple homicide this week. Along with 150 sworn officers who typically work administrative jobs, detectives are being called upon this month to temporarily bolster patrol units and create a visible blanket over the city to smother the outburst of gunfire.
Wilson Hicks, former Executive Editor for Life Magazine, once wrote, “The most graphic reporting is eyewitness reporting. ‘I was there, I saw it happen, it was like this.’ In journalistic print, the firsthand account which comes closest to reproducing the actuality of an event is the picture…”
Baltimore Sun photographers were on hand to witness and photograph the highs and lows of 2012, from the resurgent Orioles making the playoffs for the first time in 15 years to the devastation of Superstorm Sandy.
The images in this gallery are a sampling of these pictures as selected by Sun Director of Photography Robert Hamilton. Some of these photographs are from significant events that shaped the lives of people; others are small moments of universal truths.
Bobby Valentine, former Boston Red Sox manager and Brian Cashman, general manager of the New York Yankees rappel 22 stories in Connecticut, Western Europeans embrace the cold weather, Buddhist monks protest recent police violence at a copper mining site in Myanmar and more in today’s daily brief.
Dozens of arrests took place in the financial district of New York City as police confronted activists celebrating the one year anniversary of what became known as “Occupy Wall Street.” The protesters tried to surround the Stock Exchange and interrupt traffic as part of marking the anniversary according to a Reuters report.
Public spaces are fair game for photographers – a right protected under the First Amendment as free speech. But in recent years that right has come under attack by law enforcement and officials, who are challenging the constraints of what can and cannot be filmed in a public space. Now, more than ever, photographers would be well-advised to learn their rights.
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Baltimore neighborhoods
Baltimore street photographers
Year in review
Freddie Gray: protests, aftermath
24 hours with...
A. Aubrey Bodine
Viewing Baltimore from above