The War Room, the Street: 2 Responses to Baltimore Violence

There are only three rules at the Kids Safe Zone: Sign in, clean up after yourself, and read for 15 minutes before playing with the toys stacked around the space, a converted laundromat in West Baltimore

In this Aug. 19, 2015, photo, children play with Play-Doh at Kids Safe Zone community center in Baltimore. The clubhouse, which occupies an abandoned laundromat, opened in June in response to unrest that ripped through the neighborhood's streets and marked the beginning of the most violent summer the city has seen in more than four decades. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

BALTIMORE—There are only three rules at the Kids Safe Zone: Sign in, clean up after yourself, and read for 15 minutes before playing with the toys stacked around the space, a converted laundromat in West Baltimore.

Ericka Alston — who launched the center in the poor, crime-riddled neighborhood in response to the violence that followed the death of Freddie Gray — said she considered different rules: no fighting, no cursing, no violence. But she thought better of it.

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