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Freddie Gray’s April 12 interaction with the Baltimore Police Department was brief, shocking and, and as America and much of the world knows now, catastrophic. As the city’s chief prosecutor alleged Friday, Baltimore police arrested Gray, transported him in a van in handcuffs and leg restraints without securing his seatbelt, ignored his protestations that he couldn’t breathe and failed to summon assistance despite his “seriously deteriorating medical condition.”

By the time the van arrived after what to the police station, his spinal cord was severed and Gray was no longer breathing at all. Only then was he taken to a hospital. The whole affair lasted but 45 minutes; one week later, Gray was dead.

Lost in much of the retelling is why Gray was arrested in the first place. Police chased him after he reportedly “made eye contact” with one of their officers and then allegedly fled. No account indicates he was suspected of wrongdoing, nor were there any outstanding warrants for his arrest; there was likewise no active search in the area for a suspect fitting his description.

When police caught up with him, he surrendered and was placed face down in handcuffs. In their subsequent search, police found he was carrying a knife, and arrested him for illegal possession of a switchblade — an arrest the prosecutor says was illegal, as the knife Gray was carrying was perfectly permissible under Baltimore law.

It is impossible to understand the rage coursing through black America right now without first considering the dynamics within those initial couple of minutes. The pursuit of a man whose only offense seems to have been to look a police officer in the eye while being black. The humiliation of being shoved to the ground and handcuffed for no reason. The trumped up knife charge. And the maddening outrage at not only having seen this same story so many times before, but perhaps to have experienced it personally or to have seen family members or friends subjected to such injustice.

Perhaps that is why Freddie Gray ran and resisted arrest: He believed that in the eyes of those wearing the Baltimore PD badge, his rights as an American did not exist, and his life, as a black man, was expendable.

The six Baltimore police officers arrested and charged Friday with felonies ranging from second-degree murder to false imprisonment in Gray’s death are the living embodiment of a police culture not limited to that city.

National studies have repeatedly shown that African-American drivers are twice as likely as others to be pulled over in traffic stops. A of FBI data showed that in at least 70 police departments around the country, blacks are arrested at rates 10 times higher than others.

The same analysis showed that in 2011-12, blacks were arrested by the Baltimore PD at a rate of 229.3 per 1,000 residents, non blacks at 67.4 per 1,000. And for the Honolulu Police Department, the USA Today analysis showed the black arrest rate was 208 per 1,000 residents, and the non black rate, 73.8 per 1,000.

“We rely on the police to protect us from harm and promote fairness and justice in our communities. But racial profiling has led countless people to live in fear, casting entire communities as suspect simply because of what they look like, where they come from, or what religion they adhere to,” . “More than 240 years of slavery and 90 years of legalized racial segregation have led to systemic profiling of blacks in traffic and pedestrian stops.”

Such profiling has contributed to appalling disparities in incarceration and life expectations. A Pew Research Center study found that in 2010, black men were six times as likely as white men to be in federal, state and local jails. Pew also found that while gaps in high school completion between blacks and whites have narrowed in recent decades, gaps in median household income and wealth have grown significantly greater.

In 2011-12, blacks were arrested by the Baltimore PD at a rate of 229.3 per 1,000 residents, non blacks at 67.4 per 1,000. For the Honolulu PD, the black arrest rate was 208 per 1,000 residents, and the non black rate, 73.8 per 1,000.

Baltimore and the nation overall seemed to breathe a sigh of relief on Friday with the arrest of the six officers. Previous high-profile incidents over the past year involving black deaths at the hand of police had too often given rise to questionable, protracted investigations and few or no consequences against responsible officers. The speed with which State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby filed the charges — shortly after receiving a medical examiner’s report ruling Gray’s death a homicide — took many in the city by surprise, even touching off celebrations.

Yes, expectations for justice when it comes to black America are that low.

Last December, following a similarly high-profile incident in which Eric Garner died at the hands of New York Police Department officers, President Barrack Obama called for a and established a task force “to identify best practices and offer recommendations on how policing practices can promote effective crime reduction while building public trust.” The group’s subsequent issued in March, included a long list of reforms that await Congressional action.

The president last week announced his administration will act now on one key priority, providing $20 million in grants to local police departments to buy body cameras — an announcement applauded by U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz. Schatz last fall introduced a bill that would essentially do the same thing and promised Friday to continue to push for legislation to help “rebuild the trust between communities and the police and to reform our broken criminal justice system.”

If the unrest last week in Baltimore showed anything, it’s that legislative reform and a national conversation can’t wait much longer. Incidents over the past couple of years in Missouri, Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, California and New York have created the cultural equivalent of fire season, with conditions ripe for a blaze to burn out of control.

While Hawaii’s culture around race is different from that of mainland states, it needs to be part of that conversation, too. High-profile incidents here over the past year involving police violence may not be racial in nature, but have prompted biting criticism of a police department that too often lacks in transparency and continually lets officers off the hook even when their conduct seems to demand consequences.

Sadly, measures that would have brought much needed change to Hawaii law enforcement fell, one after another, in this year’s legislative session. Our state will continue to be the only one in the nation without a statewide police standards and training board or local citizens review boards. Money couldn’t be found for a measure that would have allowed for the purchase of more body cameras for police.

We can do better. And the death of Freddie Gray reminds us that not just in Baltimore, not just in some states, but across the country, collectively, we must.