Students in Baltimore aim to mend the relationship between local teens, police

Long before riots erupted in Baltimore, dozens of area high schoolers decided it was up to them to fix the relationship between local teenagers and police officers.

Members of the Inner Harbor Project serve as "peace ambassadors" down at the harbor, a tourist attraction and gathering place for teens. Wearing matching blue T-shirts, they are on the lookout for altercations between young people and police; if they see an argument starting, they step in, acting as mediators. The students have partnered with businesses in the area and also participate in trainings with the Baltimore Police Department's Inner Harbor unit.

High school student Diamond Sampson joined the Inner Harbor Project three years ago, and told Mother Jones that while she's upset by the recent violence in Baltimore, she understands where it is coming from; on Saturday, she said people walked by during the peaceful protest of the death of Freddie Gray and shouted "black lives didn't matter." While the project's founder, Celia Neustadt, is worried about "so many young people in this city with nothing to lose," the teens are already strategizing ways to stem the unrest by using their social networks to stop agitators and find new ambassadors. "There's something going on, greater than our generation can realize," Sampson said.

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