Baltimore crowd swells in protest of Freddie Gray’s death
BALTIMORE — A largely peaceful protest over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25year-old black man who suffered a spinal cord injury in police custody, gave way to scattered scenes of chaos on Saturday night, as demonstrators smashed a downtown storefront window and damaged police cruisers, while officers broke up skirmishes and made arrests near Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
A message on a scoreboard during the baseball game at Camden Yards asked fans stay in the park as protests continued outside the stadium, Reuters reported.
The scoreboard said the city's mayor and the police department had asked “all fans to remain inside the ballpark until further notice,” according to photos posted to Twitter and a report from local television station WBAL.
Hours earlier, a racially diverse and mostly calm crowd of demonstrators marched through the streets, clogging intersections, carrying signs and shouting, “All night, all day, we’re gonna fight for Freddie Gray!” Some had come from New York and Ferguson, Mo., and authorities here had warned against “outside agitators’’ coming to stir up trouble.
The demonstrators made their way from West Baltimore, from the squat brick public housing development where Mr. Gray was arrested on April 12, through the downtown harbor, before massing on a plaza at City Hall, where one of the speakers told the crowd he would release them in an hour, adding: “Shut it down if you want to! Shut it down!”
Daily protests have swept across the city since Mr. Gray died last Sunday, but Saturday’s turnout was among the largest.
The trouble began when a group of protesters, as many as 100 by some accounts, split from the main group near the end of the protest and went on a rampage — throwing cans, bottles and trash cans at police officers and breaking windows in some businesses. As the breakaway group reached Camden Yards, where the Baltimore Orioles were scheduled to play the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night, they were met by police officers in riot gear. There were reports of damage to some cars parked at the baseball stadium.
As protesters blocked the corner of Pratt and Light Streets, a major downtown intersection, the Baltimore Police Department urged demonstrators to remain peaceful. Its Twitter feed reported “isolated pockets of people from out of town causing disturbances downtown.’’
The police said people were throwing things at officers, and that several of their cars had been damaged; by 7:45 p.m., there had been just two arrests.
The department spokesman, Capt. J. Eric Kowalczyk, told a local television station that the police were determined to protect the protesters’ rights to “peaceful expression,’’ adding, “Our strategy from the beginning has been to make sure that people have the opportunity to voice that frustration that they’re feeling.’’
The main protest drew a racially diverse crowd. Organizers included the New Black Panther Party, the World Socialist Party and the Peoples Power Assemblies. There were also scores of college students among the several thousand who joined the two-mile march, along with children and seniors.
“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.”
Funeral services for Mr. Gray, 25, are scheduled for Monday at New Shiloh Baptist Church in West Baltimore.
On Friday, the Baltimore police commissioner said his officers should have sought medical attention for 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 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.”) 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.