Tension on streets as Baltimore enforces curfew
Baltimore police enforcing a curfew Tuesday engaged in a brief but tense standoff at the same intersection where rioting occurred the night before.
But about an hour after the curfew took effect, it appeared the area around intersection had been mostly cleared. A total of 10 arrests were made, according to the Baltimore Police.
Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said the night went by without any “major events” and that he was “very pleased with the community” for the mostly peaceful conduct.
“The curfew is working,” he said at a news conference just before midnight Tuesday night.
“The biggest thing is citizens are safe, the city is stable, we hope to maintain it that way.”
Seven of the ten arrests were for curfew violations, while two were for looting and one for disorderly conduct.
The standoff at the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave. and W. North Ave. began after 10 p.m., when the curfew officially began.
Officers and community leaders — including Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) — asked residents to go back to their homes, according to Batts.
As police officers in riot gear slowly advanced, some in the crowd threw rocks and bottles and the police fired back with pepper balls, the Baltimore Sun reported. There was also a cloud of smoke, the exact source of which was unclear.
News footage from West Baltimore later in the evening showed police officers with their guards down, setting down their riot shields and lifting their face shields. A number of National Guard Humvees were moving into position around the city.
The curfew will be in effect until 5 a.m. on Wednesday and is scheduled to last all week.
The interaction was tense, but far from the riots that took place on Monday has residents of Baltimore — mainly in the western part of the city — voiced their dissatisfaction with the police department and the investigation into the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.
Gray, who was black, sustained a fatal spinal injury while in police custody.
“I think this can be our defining moment, and not the darkest days that we saw yesterday,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) said at an early-evening press conference on Tuesday.
Rawlings-Blake and Batts said that the day had been mostly quiet, despite the fact that public schools had been closed.
The police department’s Twitter account and television broadcasts indicated some people were peacefully protesting the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who sustained a fatal injury to his spine while in police custody.
It was this dissatisfaction that triggered the incidents on Monday, which saw rioters loot stores and light cars and buildings on fire.
But daylight on Tuesday saw the violence quiet down.
“Overall, today it has been a very good day,” Batts said, noting that there had been a few arrests. “For the most part, the city has been calm today.”
Asked if he knew when the National Guard would leave Baltimore, he said they would be deployed to the city until he decided otherwise.
“We’re going to keep them here as long as is necessary,” Batts said.
“Last night was a very rough period for our city, but today I think we saw a lot more of what Baltimore is about,” Rawlings-Blake said.
On Monday night, as the national media converged on Baltimore and violence continued in certain quarters of the city, Rawlings-Blake asked Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to activate the National Guard to respond to the city. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) sent in some of his state’s National Guard as well.
The Baltimore Orioles postponed their Tuesday night game against the Chicago White Sox — as they did Monday — and their Wednesday afternoon game will be closed to the public.
Public schools will reopen Wednesday, CNN reported.
Other elected officials have said, like Rawlings-Blake, that the violence is not indicative of Baltimore’s character as a city.
“We’ve got to remember, Baltimore is good people,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said Tuesday afternoon, noting that the number of young people who rioted on Monday were a small fraction of the school-age population in Baltimore.
The events in Baltimore have attracted national attention.
President Obama took 15 minutes during a press conference on trade on Tuesday to condemn the violence and speak about the issues raised by the protests in the city.
“There is no excuse for the kind of violence we saw yesterday. It is counterproductive,” he said. “They’re not protesting. They’re not making a statement. They are stealing.”
Still, he added, there are larger issues with policing in America that still need to be addressed.
The Department of Justice said Tuesday that several of its staff members had traveled to Baltimore to speak with police department officials about the investigation into Gray’s death and efforts to bring together community members and law enforcement.
There were demonstrations in cities around the country in support of protesters in Baltimore, including Washington, D.C. and Chicago.
– Updated at 12:03 a.m.