A pattern of racial violence has been set in motion in the US since the murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida in the summer of 2012. In this violence the victims are invariably black youths and the perpetrators are white police officials. These incidents have common traits: the local black community will protest, followed by large-scale demonstrations in other neighbourhoods. Then the police will reveal video footage demonising the victim who they claim was involved in criminal activity in the past or just before the incident took place.In April 2014, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy, while playing with a toy gun in his neighbourhood, was gunned down by a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio. Tamir had no chance to explain why and what arms he was in possession of. The police officer fired from within his car and the child succumbed to his injuries on the spot. In the summer of 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The circumstances under which Brown was killed still remain unclear. The police officer claimed he was threatened by an unarmed stranger who tried to snatch his weapon from him. An altercation followed and the police officer opened fire, killing Brown. That an armed police officer was threatened by an unarmed teenager is an incredible claim. The autopsy report, however, confirmed that six bullets were fired, putting an end to Brown’s life. The local community came out onto the streets to protest and demanded the trial of the police officer responsible for the murder. Following months of investigation the prosecuting official dwelt at length on the conduct of the victim and characterised him as a criminal having multiple records of unlawful activities. In the same report the prosecutor exonerated the police officer from further investigation or trial. Eric Holder, the then attorney general visited the area, held wide ranging discussions with community leaders and assured them that there would be a judicial investigation into the murder. The report was made public on the last days of Eric Holder’s term in office, citing lack of evidence to indict the police officer who had shot and killed Brown.A few months later, in New York, Eric Garner was challenged by the police. Garner used to sell cigarettes to earn his living. He refused to surrender to police but was overpowered. He was strangled whilst placed in a chokehold. Garner had asthma and begged police personnel that he could not breathe. His appeal fell on deaf ears. An emergency medical team was summoned but the medics could do little to resuscitate Garner’s heartbeat. Garner died on the street. The entire episode was captured on video, revealing how mercilessly Garner was suffocated to death. Nevertheless, it took a few weeks for the police department to send the concerned official on administrative leave. The newly elected mayor of New York denounced excessive use of force and suggested humane behavioural training for police personnel. The police almost revolted and turned their back on the mayor when he came to address them. More than six months have gone by but no report has seen the light of day nor any action has been taken against the officials responsible for the killing of Garner. But indolence can be consequential. An African-American youth, a few weeks later, drove from Maryland, shot and injured his girlfriend in Baltimore and then assassinated two police officers on duty in the Bronx before he killed himself.Baltimore, the port city of Maryland, now joins this racial violence. Freddie Gray, an African-American youth, was arrested on April 12 and after a week died in police custody from a severe spinal injury. Video footage shows Gray was injured and lifted to the police van after arrest but the police claim that the injury was self-inflicted. People in the neighbourhood dismissed the police’s version of the events and came out onto the streets. The demonstration at the beginning was peaceful but on the day of the funeral it became deadly violent. Mobs destroyed police cars, looted business outlets and pharmacies, and set a newly built seniors’ home on fire. The governor mobilised an additional police force to quell the riots, the worst since Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.The Washington Post, in its editorial of May 12, claimed that suspects in Baltimore police custody are routinely turned away by the jail authority because “they are deemed too battered, beaten, bruised or sick to be admitted”. This happens in a city where the mayor, city council president, police chief, top prosecutors and city leaders are black. Almost 40 percent of the city’s police personnel are black. Baltimore was once home to vast manufacturing facilities operated by Bethlehem Steel, General Motors and Martin Marietta. About one third of its labour force in 1970 was employed by the manufacturing industries. It declined to seven percent by 2000 and losses continued. In Gray’s neighbourhood, unemployment stands at 20 percent as against the national average of 5.4 percent. In the absence of regular employment, life becomes less coherent. New research, referred to by The Washington Post in May, concluded that “minorities who lost homes during foreclosures moved to more distressed neighbourhoods — over time many neighbourhoods became more segregated.”President Obama deplored the troubling frequency of deadly encounters between the police and poor African-American citizens, and said, “If we think that we are just going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there, without as a nation saying what we can do to change those communities, then we are not going to solve this problem.” Senior officials and community leaders are calling for police reforms, reviews of laws dealing with suspects and enhanced interactions between the community and police. These are, no doubt, helpful measures but appear to be too little too late.There is no reason to believe that Baltimore has witnessed its last racial disturbance. Measures taken so far to restrain the police against the use of excessive force and promotion of dialogue with the community have produced little. The residents of Baltimore, including blacks, have pointed fingers at poverty-stricken, impoverished neighbourhoods that have dispatched disgruntled youth to loot business outlets and set fire to public property. A comprehensive approach combined with employment creation opportunities for the neighbourhood marked by high-school dropouts and high unemployment could be selected for special intervention. The micro-credit programme of Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus transformed many impoverished communities where hundreds of youths successfully unfolded new opportunities. The federal government could consider providing funding to try micro-credit for these neighbourhoods. There is a compelling urgency to install hope in the youth. Time is of the essence. The writer is a former official of the United Nations