BALTIMORE — Pledging to shut down the city, thousands of demonstrators jammed the streets of Baltimore on Saturday to protest the death of a black man who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody.
Daily demonstrations have swept across the city since the man, Freddie Gray, died last Sunday, but Saturday’s turnout was among the largest. The march began at the housing project in West Baltimore where Mr. Gray was arrested, the Gilmor Homes, and proceeded downtown to City Hall, where organizers addressed the crowd.
“The voice of pain and suffering in Baltimore will be heard today,†Malik Shabazz, a founder and the president of Black Lawyers for Justice, said in an interview on Saturday. “The focus will be on Freddie Gray and how his back and spine were broken, and how the cover-up must end today.â€
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The protest drew a racially diverse crowd and many of the participants came from outside Baltimore, from places like Ferguson, Mo.; New York City; and Washington, D.C. Organizers included the New Black Panther Party, the World Socialist Party and the Peoples Power Assemblies. There were also scores of college students who joined the two-mile march, along with children and seniors.
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A timeline of events leading up to Mr. Gray’s hospitalization.
“I want outside people to come in,†Carron Morgan, 18, a first cousin of Mr. Gray, said as he watched people gather Saturday afternoon at the Gilmor Homes to listen to the first of the day’s speeches. “But I want them to understand that we don’t want to harm any police officers. We just want justice.†Mr. Morgan, a student at Baltimore City Community College, said he had helped plan the protest. Asked what he expected from it, he said: “I just hope that before the funeral, the state and the federal government step up and bring these police to justice.â€
Funeral services for Mr. Gray, 25, are scheduled for Monday at New Shiloh Baptist Church in West Baltimore.
Omar Newberns of Baltimore was among the throng that assembled at the corner of Mount and Presbury Streets to join the march from the onset. The corner is just blocks from where Mr. Gray was apprehended by the police.
Mr. Newberns works as a security guard, but said at the moment he did not want to be associated with the city’s police officers.
“They are good people, but it’s like a bad apple spoils the bunch,†he said.
While the march proceeded in an orderly and peaceful fashion, Mr. Newberns said he was concerned about the spate of police killings involving black men.
“This is a powder keg right now. New York and Ferguson and all those other places are just preliminary to introduce it to the nation,†he said. “It could become another Watts. If things don’t get taken care of here, the whole nation could be set afire. I don’t want that to happen.â€
On Friday, the Baltimore police commissioner said his officers should have sought medical attention for Mr. Gray much sooner than they did, but that admission, the first from police officials, was not enough to satisfy the protesters. They continued their demands for the firing of six officers involved in Mr. Gray’s arrest and the resignation of the commissioner, Anthony W. Batts.
The six officers were suspended with pay while the Baltimore Police Department carries out a criminal investigation. (Some demonstrators carried signs on Saturday reading, “No paid vacations.â€) The Justice Department also is reviewing the case for possible civil rights violations. Mr. Gray’s family has hired a third party to conduct an independent investigation.
Mr. Batts said Friday that officers should have called for an ambulance when Mr. Gray was first arrested instead of waiting until he arrived at the police station 50 minutes later. The police commissioner also said it was unacceptable that the officers had not put Mr. Gray in a seatbelt for the ride.
Mr. Gray was arrested on April 12 after making eye contact with a police lieutenant and then fleeing, according to the police account. He was tackled by police officers, who held him down and handcuffed him before dragging him to a police van. A bystander recorded the arrest on video using his cellphone.
Until Friday, efforts to pinpoint how and when Mr. Gray was injured had focused on what happened inside the van, with a lawyer for the officers involved playing down the suggestion, based on the cellphone video, that Mr. Gray had been hurt before he was placed inside. In the video, Mr. Gray can be heard asking for assistance while on the ground and screaming while being dragged to the police van.
The police acknowledged gaps in the timeline involving three stops made by the van. According to Police Department accounts, at the first stop, officers placed leg bars on Mr. Gray, who they said had become irate; the second stop was made to pick up another arrestee. At the third, Mr. Gray had to be picked up off the floor.
Mr. Gray’s family said that his spinal cord had been 80 percent severed, and that his voice box had been crushed. He died at a hospital last Sunday, a week after his arrest.
On Friday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake demanded to know why the police had not followed procedures for transporting arrestees and why they had failed to get timely medical attention for Mr. Gray.
The police said more than 30 investigators were reviewing the arrest. The investigators are expected to submit their preliminary findings to the state’s attorney for Baltimore on Friday.
Mr. Shabazz said he was skeptical that the police investigation would hold anyone accountable for Mr. Gray’s death, and said he expected it to be ruled an accident.
The Baltimore Police Department has a well-documented history of brutality complaints, and Mr. Shabazz said he believed police brutality had been at play in Mr. Gray’s case.
“We strongly suspect that his death and his injuries are due to the intentional acts of the Baltimore Police Department, not mere negligence and lack of a seatbelt,†he said.
Mr. Gray’s death was the latest in a string of fatal police encounters with unarmed and mostly black civilians that have forced a national debate about how law enforcement officers use lethal force on the job, especially in high-crime and minority communities.
“There is a national Holocaust of black men being killed by police officers, and Baltimore is the center and will be the center of that issue today,†Mr. Shabazz said.
Ahead of Saturday’s protest, state and city officials warned against outsiders coming into Baltimore to cause the type of unrest that roiled Ferguson after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in August. Gov. Larry Hogan sent dozens of state troopers to Baltimore, at the request of Ms. Rawlings-Blake, who urged those taking to the city’s streets to remain peaceful.
“If you’re going to come here, come here to help us, not to hurt us,†she said.
But many of the protest’s leaders dismissed the statements by the government officials.
“They need a little history,†Larry Holmes, a national organizer for the Peoples Power Assemblies, told the crowd on Saturday. “Martin Luther King was an outside agitator. Malcolm X was an agitator. Jesus Christ was an agitator.â€
“You can’t keep a problem like police brutality a local thing,†Mr. Holmes said. “The world is watching Baltimore now.â€
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