Joseph Kent: Police jail activist 'kidnapped' live on TV at Baltimore Freddie Gray protest
A lawyer found Joseph Kent after he searched for him all night
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Your support makes all the difference.A prominent student activist whose disappearance prompted online panic that he was “kidnapped” by police, was later located in a Baltimore jail.
Live TV footage from protests in the Maryland city showed Joseph Kent, a 21-year-old Morgan State University student, with his hands in the air. Mr Kent then disappeared at around 11pm local time, after the position of a riot police van temporarily blocked him from the view of the CNN cameras.
Amid heightened tensions over how police officers treat members of the African American community, the Baltimore Police force’s actions sparked fears for Kent’s safety, with worried social media users posting messages using #WhereIsJackKent?
Mr Kent has since been found in a Baltimore jail around ten minutes from the city hall, the The Guardian reported.
The young man was located by local attorney Stephen Patrick Beatty, who said he was planning to go to sleep when he saw the Mr Kent vanish on TV. Almost four hours later at 2:30am, Mr Beatty was sat face-to-face with Mr Kent at the jail.
Mr Beatty told The Guardian that Mr Kent “wanted police to know he was harmless so he had his hands up the whole time”.
The student told his attorney that he didn’t see or hear the police vehicle, and he was then “grabbed by multiple people in riot gear.”
Almost 48 hours after after Mr Kent was detained, Mr Beatty tweeted that Mr Kent "is a free man".
Minutes later he tweeted that he had received "literally 100s of calls", and asked people to "stand by" as he tried to contact his client.
According to Mr Kent’s LinkedIn account, he is a music student at Morgan State University where he works as a campus administrative assistant.
Protests have erupted in Baltimore this week over the death of Freddie Gray, 25, the young black man who died of spinal injuries while in police custody.
The demonstrations have now spread to New York and Boston, with protesters in Manhattan’s Union Square chanting” no justice, no peace“ and ”hands up, don't shoot,“ a reference to the police killing of Mr Brown.
Additional reporting by AP
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