Ray Lewis Posts Facebook Video About Baltimore Riots: ‘Stop The Violence, Go Home’ [Full Text]

Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis asked for the violence in Baltimore to come to a stop after riots erupted Monday following the funeral of Freddie Gray, the man who died from a spinal cord injury suffered while in police custody. The football great took to Facebook on Tuesday to post an impassioned YouTube video where he pleaded for calm in the city.

The video, along with the full text of his speech, has been listed below:

“No way. No way. No way can this happen in our city. No. Young kids you got to understand something, get off the streets. Violence is not the answer. Violence has never been the answer. Freddie Gray, we don’t do nothing for him doing this. We know there’s a deeper issue. We know what the jungle looks like. But this isn’t it. There’s enough of us in the streets trying to change what’s going on. Baltimore get off the streets. Kids go home. Stay home. You don’t have any right to do what you’re doing to this city. Too many hard working people build this city. With put this city together. We put this city on our back. We’re with you. We know what’s going on. We know the problems. We know there was wrong done. We know we’re not getting the right justice. We know all these answers. But rioting in our streets is wrong. It’s dead wrong. We have to go back to the beginning. It takes a village. It takes a whole village to raise one child. We have to redefine what this looks like. We have to redefine what rebuilding Baltimore looks like. Cause there’s too many people putting real sweat, real tears to make our city a better place. I can’t come home and this is it. Kids can’t walk the street. This is our future. Our future is in Baltimore. What we’re trying to build is in Baltimore. Too many babies are paying attention to this craziness. And the sad part is we have young kids trying to tell us how they’re going to dictate our city. That won’t happen. We must change this right now. Stop the violence, man. Go home. I’m telling you go home. Whatever I have to do. It will not happen on our clock. It will not happen on our clock.”

Lewis, 39, then took to Twitter to reinforce his statement.

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