Fire marshals woke Que Pequeno and his four roommates up on the morning of December 5 with orders for them to vacate their home within an hour while his seven other roommates were out for the day. A Facebook Live video by one of Que's roommates shows tenants' belongings lined up against the building wall later that afternoon as they go back and forth with police and city officials. In the video, police officers and tenants argue about how much time they were given to round up their things, with officers insisting that tenants had four hours. "They gave us one hour—well they said it was one hour—it was actually 20 minutes," Que tells me over the phone hours after the eviction. The same was said to police by his roommate who broadcasted the eviction. "They gave us 20 minutes to get everything we could. And they boarded up the doors."
The space they occupied in Central Baltimore was the Bell Foundry—a warehouse-like studio space where artists have lived for the past seven years. Que had been operating out of a studio at the Bell Foundry since April, and has made it his mission to organize music events in the building's basement to give black artists of the city's DIY community a platform to perform. Since the closing of The Bell Foundry, spaces in Denver, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Dallas, and other cities are currently in danger of being shut down as well, if they haven't already. This has forced and motivated the national DIY community to unite to help fight off a potential mass-closing by maneuvering through digital and physical barricades for solutions.
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