Monday, April 27, 2015

9:01 PM

By Unknown

In: , , ,

No comments

National Guard Called Out in Baltimore as Police and Youths Clash After ... - New York Times

Slide Show|12 Photos

Protests Take Violent Turn in Baltimore

Protests Take Violent Turn in Baltimore

Jim Bourg/Reuters

BALTIMORE — Gov. Larry Hogan activated the National Guard on Monday and the city of Baltimore announced a curfew for all residents as a turbulent day that began with the funeral of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, the nation’s latest symbol of police brutality, ended with rioting by rock-throwing youths, widespread looting and at least 15 police officers injured.

The violence that shook the city broke out in the late afternoon in the Mondawmin neighborhood of northwest Baltimore, home to the New Shiloh Baptist Church, where more than 2,000 people — politicians, activists, White House officials and civil rights activists including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Dick Gregory — had gathered for a morning of soaring Gospel music and passionate eulogies for Mr. Gray.

Hours after the service ended, angry groups of people threw bottles, rocks and chunks of concrete at officers who lined up in riot gear with shields deployed. Young men surrounded a police cruiser and smashed in its windows in what police described as an organized attack by criminals. Cars were set on fire, and store windows were shattered. A CVS drugstore was looted and set on fire. A check-cashing business was also looted. The cafe portion of the Trinacria Italian Deli, in Baltimore since 1908, was destroyed.

Live Coverage From Baltimore

Violent confrontations between police and youths follow Freddie Gray’s funeral.

Latest Updates See All Updates

By evening, the unrest was spreading, and the police said at least 27 people had been arrested. At a news conference on Monday night, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew would be imposed for a week beginning on Tuesday. “Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs,” she said. The city already has a curfew for juveniles.

The governor, at the request of the city of Baltimore, declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard. Officers were also on the way from surrounding counties to back up more than 1,000 Baltimore police officers already on the streets and 82 state troopers dispatched earlier in the day.

“Today’s acts of looting and violence in Baltimore will not be tolerated,” the governor said in a statement. He condemned “direct attacks against innocent civilians, business and law enforcement officers,” adding, “there is a significant difference between protesting and violence.”

The Baltimore police vowed the authorities would take “appropriate measures” to keep officers and the neighborhood safe.

“You’re going to see tear gas. You’re going to see pepper balls. We’re going to use appropriate methods to make sure we can preserve the safety of that community,” a spokesman, Capt. J. Eric Kowalczyk, said at a news conference. Fifteen police officers were injured, some with broken bones, and one was unresponsive, according to the department.

Timeline

Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard when riots broke out after the funeral of Freddie Gray.

OPEN Timeline

A White House official said President Obama had spoken to Ms. Rawlings-Blake and stood ready to “provide assistance as needed,” though officials were not specific.

The police said early in the day that they had received a “credible threat” that members of various gangs, including the Black Guerrilla Family, Bloods and Crips had “entered into a partnership to ‘take out’ law enforcement officers.” But officers kept a low profile in the neighborhood during the Gray funeral. The police also said that a flier circulated on social media called for a period of violence on Monday afternoon to begin at the Mondawmin Mall and move toward City Hall downtown.

Warned by the police of possible violence, the University of Maryland campus in downtown Baltimore closed early, as did the mall. The Orioles postponed their home game against the Chicago White Sox on Monday.

Pastor Jamal Bryant, who delivered Mr. Gray’s eulogy, came back to the neighborhood after the burial on Monday afternoon to appeal for calm. He said he would send teams of men from his church, the Empowerment Temple, to help keep the peace.

“This is not what the family asked for, today of all days,” Mr. Bryant said. “For us to come out of the burial and walk into this is absolutely inexcusable.” He said he was “asking every young person to go back home,” adding, “it’s frustration, anger and it’s disrespect for the family.”

Play Video|1:40

Baltimore Youths Clash With Police

Baltimore Youths Clash With Police

Hundreds of young people gathered outside a mall in northwestern Baltimore and confronted the police, throwing rocks and bottles at officers.

By WJZ-TV CBS Baltimore via Associated Press on April 27, 2015. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Mr. Gray’s death on April 19, a week after sustaining a spinal cord injury while in police custody, has opened a deep wound in this majority-black city, where Ms. Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts — both of whom are black — have struggled to reform a police department that has a history of aggressive, sometimes brutal, treatment of black men.

The death spawned a week of protests that had been largely peaceful until Saturday night, when demonstrators — who had spent the afternoon marching through the city — scuffled with officers in riot gear outside Camden Yards, the downtown baseball park. Authorities attributed the scattered violence that night to outsiders who, Ms. Rawlings-Blake said, “were inciting,” with “ ‘go out there and shut this city down’ kind of messaging.”

But the violence on Monday was much more devastating and profound, a blow for a city whose leaders had been hoping Mr. Gray’s funeral would show the nation its more peaceful side. At the New Shiloh Baptist Church, Mr. Gray lay in an open white coffin, in a white shirt and tie, with a pillow bearing a picture of him in a red T-shirt, against a backdrop of a blue sky and doves, with the message “Peace y’all.”

The service was much more than a celebration of Mr. Gray’s short life; it was a call for peace and justice — and for residents of Baltimore to help lead the nationwide movement for better police treatment of black men that emerged last August after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

“The eyes of this country are all on us, because they want to see whether we have the stuff to make this right,” said William Murphy, the lawyer representing the Gray family, who is a fixture in legal and political circles here. “They want to know whether our leadership is up to the task.”

Play Video|1:02

Funeral After a Death in Police Custody

Funeral After a Death in Police Custody

A funeral was held in Baltimore for Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man whose death from spinal injuries sustained while in police custody led to protests.

By Associated Press on April 27, 2015. Photo by Matt Roth for The New York Times.

Much of that leadership was seated in the pews, including Ms. Rawlings-Blake and Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, who was one of the speakers.

Also among the mourners were Kweisi Mfume, a former congressman and chief of the N.A.A.C.P.; three aides to President Obama; and several family members of others killed by the police in various parts of the country, including Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, a man who died after a police officer put him in a chokehold last year on Staten Island. She said she had come “to stand with the family of Freddie Gray. It’s unfortunate, but I feel we have a connection.” In his eulogy, Mr. Bryant spoke of the plight of poor, young black men like Mr. Gray, living “confined to a box” made up of poor education, lack of job opportunities and racial stereotypes — “the box of thinking all black men are thugs and athletes and rappers.”

“He had to have been asking himself, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ ” Mr. Bryant said. “He had to feel at age 25 like the walls were closing in on him.”

Mr. Bryant insisted that Mr. Gray’s death would not “be in vain.” He vowed that Baltimore residents would “keep demanding justice” but also issued a pointed rebuke to the congregation, telling members that black people must take control of their lives and force the government and police to change.

“This is not the time for us as a people to be sitting on the corner drinking malt liquor,” he roared, as his voice rose and the congregation, clapping, rose to its feet. “This is not the time for us to be playing the lottery or at the horsing casino, this is not the time for us to be walking down with our pants hanging down.”

Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, spoke at Mr. Gray's funeral. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

He said, “Get your black self up and change this city!” and added, “I don’t know how you can be black in America and be silent. With everything we’ve been through, ain’t no way in the world you can sit here and be silent in the face of injustice.”

But as the day went on, the mood changed. The violence appears to have begun inside the Mondawmin Mall. Erica Ellis, 23, who works in a Game Stop store there, said the mall was shut down at 2 p.m., not long after Mr. Gray’s funeral cortege left for his burial.

She said she went outside and saw a big line of police officers and hundreds of young people who started throwing rocks and bricks. But police did not respond immediately, she said. “The police officers were trying as hard as they can not to hurt the people’s children,” she said.

At the corner of North Fulton and West North Avenues, looters could be seen breaking into stores and walking out with cases of food and water while hundreds of police officers in riot gear gathered about four blocks away.

When a pair of police cruisers tried to enter the area, young men threw bottles at them. Several of the men wore surgical masks. Some carried baseball bats, others carried pipes. While several people held signs that said “Stop the war,” protesting peacefully, the rising chaos surrounded them: a broken-down BMW sat empty in the middle of the street, shards of glass from convenience store windows lay on the pavement and a young man carrying bolt cutters walked by.

Residents looked on aghast. Along North Avenue, not far from the Gilmor Homes, the public housing development where Mr. Gray was first arrested, Chris Malloy, who lives in the area and participated in Saturday’s protest march, shook his head. He said he was angry at the police and the looters — all at once.

“All they had to do was march, but they did this,” he said, sounding disgusted, as the CVS store burned nearby. “You can take stuff out of the store, but why do you have to burn it down?”




Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1EgUHju

0 comments:

Post a Comment