But Hill says police are not the enemy.
Frederick, Md (KM) One of the protesters who marched in downtown Frederick and rallied at Baker Park a few weeks ago was Aje Hill, the founder of “I Believe In Me,”: which is a group which mentors kids so they don’t get in trouble with the law.
“We’re trying to establish here is charge for our future generations,” he says. “So I was able to take a different platform and do some peaceful protest in the downtown area with some of my young men and women from the program and other community leaders, standing up the same thing: change and justice, equal rights.”
The demonstrators were protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis. The death caught on video disgusted a lot of Americans, including police officers.
Hill founded “I Believe In Me,” a mentor program for young people to keep these kids from making bad decisions, and going into what he calls “a dark place.”
He also say the police are not the enemy. “Sometimes we think the police are the enemy. I just want to make a point they’re not.. If there’s something happening to a loved one of mine, I’m going to call the police,” he says.
Often, the problem is economic and social. “Definitely, poverty. Definitely, lack of opportunity for minority people,” says Hill
The protest march and rally attracted 5,000 people, according to Frederick Police. Hill says he believes it’s going to make a different. “There’s a definite, definite awareness. Everybody’s aware that it’s an issue. Everybody’s aware it;s a problem So I think now we have a great time in our community to come up with a collective decision and a solution,” he says.
Hill says he has had run-ins with the law in the past, and spent a few years in prison for felony drug offenses. “But I put myself in that lifestyle. I made the choice to break the law. I made the choice to do the things that I did to hurt myself and hurt others,”: he says. “And I would say the police did what they were supposed to do and protect and serve; to send me to jail and help change into what I am today.”
He says “I Believe In Me” was established to keep young people from following a path that could lead them to prison, or worse.
By Kevin McManus