In the District Courtroom on Monday a group of Jewish supporters came to be a presence for Eli Werdesheim. I know they were there to show support. I just found that some in the room were turning this into a racial carnival. That’s the last thing anyone needs.
He was called to the courtroom 7 on Wabash Avenue because the state would ask him to forfeit his passport.
All of a sudden, people who never had cause to step in the environment of a courtroom were there.
The assistant state’s attorney did ask that Mr. Werdesheim, 23, turn in the passport, because he was in the state’s opinion a “flight risk.”
His parents, indeed his fiancee’s parents were asked to pledge to the state some $50,000 that he would return on schedule for his January 20 pre-trial hearing in this same building.
Eli and his fiancée had planned a trip to Israel some 10 days prior to his alleged assault of a 15-year-old Northwestern High School student.
Eli is well represented by his caring attorney Andrew I. Alperstein. Also in the courtroom on Monday was the alleged victim’s attorney J. Wyndal Gordon, who
is equally caring and concerned for his client’s well being.
When the case does move forward, it is my hope and my prayer that we as Baltimoreans, black Baltimoreans and Jewish Baltimoreans move productively ahead.
It will be easy to let race be the engine to this entire process.
But I think it difficult that when we have an issue like this, that shouldn’t be the only call to bring people of different races and religions together to debate, to discuss, to hear one another out.
Of course, we have an alleged crime here, a serious one at that.
Don’t show up at the courthouse because you are black or Jewish and are rooting for one side or the other based on that. Show up to the courthouse, because you want as an American, a Baltimorean to watch justice and due process happen in a spirit of fairness. Mr. Gordon and Mr. Alperstein and the state’s attorney’s office are all representative of high levels of professionalism. They will show us how this all works.
I have on my desk a statuette of Lady Justice holding the scales. And Lady Justice’s eyes are blindfolded.
Jews, blacks?
We’re Americans.
When Eli Werdesheim returns from Israel, the work of what happened that day on November 19 will hopefully begin.
And hopefully, prayerfully we should all grow from the legal process that will stand before us. A young teen was bloodied. A young man felt he had to defend himself.
If this is only a case of black vs. Jew, then I fear we have gone no where since the Civil Rights Movement when we worked so closely together.
As I’ve written before, if this upcoming legal battle is about race, then our common enemies are loving it.
Let’s not make it racial.
Instead, let’s let the capable attorneys and the judge look through this, handle the facts and do the right thing.
The District Court is not a carnival, it’s not a place where we should all suddenly show up. And yes, good people, who are black and/or Jewish can make sometimes decisions that others question.
But our judicial system is designed to be fair.
And fair it will be.