Uneasy quiet returns to city
Residents, police begin cleanup from riots; Baltimore leaders blame ‘outside agitators’
BALTIMORE — Residents here shaken by violent protests over the death of a man in police custody awoke Sunday to sweep up shattered glass and board up broken windows, while authorities increased the count of those arrested to nearly three dozen.
The impact of Saturday’s demonstrations was felt in both the sea of boarded, abandoned homes in West Baltimore and in the gleaming waterfront along the Inner Harbor, where protesters had vowed to shut down the city with the slogan “No business as usual.”
Authorities said Sunday that 35 people had been arrested — 31 adults and four juveniles — on charges that included failure to disperse, rioting, assaulting police, burglary, theft and destruction of property. Police said two journalists who were “inadvertently detained” were freed without charges.
A spokesman for the Maryland prison system said one of the protesters arrested was from Philadelphia, another from Washington and a third from a suburb north of Baltimore, but most were from Baltimore.
City leaders and the NAACP blamed the violence on “outside agitators” and said the arrests of so many from Baltimore did not reflect instigators who escaped apprehension. One of the last speakers Saturday at a City Hall rally told the crowd that he understood they wanted to go to Camden Yards and assured them they would soon “be released” and be on their own.
Both affected areas of the city returned to quiet Sunday, and community leaders said protests were suspended in deference to the wake Sunday afternoon and funeral today for the man whose death sparked the protests. Freddie Gray, 25, died April 19, a week after he was arrested on a West Baltimore corner, pinned to the ground and dragged to the back of a police wagon.
Police said he died of severe injuries to his spine and are trying to determine how the injuries occurred.
Six officers have been suspended, and police plan to turn over their cases to prosecutors Friday. But demonstrators demanding murder indictments have turned Baltimore into the latest in a long list of cities grappling with deaths of young black men at the hands of police. WEEKEND VIOLENCE
Rage boiled over late Saturday, and Sunday the city tried to recover from hours of unrest that led to damaged police cars, the trashing of three crowded outdoor bar patios near Orioles Park at Camden Yards and fights that followed six hours of peaceful protest.
Business owners covered broken windows as fans filled the downtown ballpark Sunday afternoon to watch the Orioles play the Boston Red Sox.
The night before, frightened spectators had to navigate angry demonstrators and police in riot gear before the game and were held after the last inning until police “were absolutely sure it was safe for them to depart.”
People living next to the police station in West Baltimore — where Gray was pulled unconscious from the transport wagon April 12 — also spent the morning cleaning up from overnight clashes, in which police said protesters threw rocks and bricks at officers. People there, too, urged calm, but their emphasis was on justice and reform.
City work crews cleaned the corner of Riggs Avenue and Mount Street in front of the barricaded police station, and a resident hung a sign on a light pole: “Please protest peacefully for your community.”
At Camden Yards, the epicenter of the downtown disturbances Saturday, there was little evi- dence Sunday that anything was amiss.
It was Little League Day, and parents poured into the stadium with children in baseball uniforms in tow.
Paul Rossi, who works at a food stand selling peanuts and sausages on Camden Street, said he was injured when protesters overturned two grills and rained water bottles on patrons of outdoor bar patios. They then threw metal gates, overturned tables and broke windows, sending customers fleeing inside already jammed bars.
The scene was one of chaos, with bags and purses stolen, fistfights between protesters and baseball fans, and people scattering in panic before the crowd moved on to attack police cars on another street.
At another location, an older woman carrying an umbrella tried to stop a youth from throwing a burning trash can at police. When she failed, she stomped out the flames herself. MAyOR CRITICIzEs OuTsIDERs
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a Democrat, called the violence unacceptable as she addressed reporters Sunday evening. “We cannot and will not let a minority of incendiary individuals exploit our community,” she said at a news conference with lawmakers and religious leaders at Bethel AME Church. She said she would not let outsiders “put their own agenda ahead of our community.”
Rawlings-Blake said outsiders pushed protesters to “shut this city down,” “inciting” the crowd, and then left. The mayor praised residents who urged calm “and put their lives before the blue line” of police.
“We are seeking answers,” she said. “We can seek answers as we seek justice, and as we seek peace.”