Protest Continues In Baltimore over Freddie Gray's Death

Saturday evening a largely peaceful protest over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a spinal cord injury in police custody, gave way to scattered scenes of chaos here on Saturday night, as demonstrators smashed a downtown storefront window, threw rocks and bottles and damaged police cruisers, while officers in riot gear broke up skirmishes and made 12 arrests near Camden Yards people came out to protest against the police department. This follows the death of Freddie Gray a couple days before that took place on Sunday night.

Hours earlier, a racially diverse and mostly calm crowd of hundreds and by some estimates more than 1,000 — marched through the streets, clogging intersections, carrying signs and shouting, “All night, all day, we’re gonna fight for Freddie Gray!” They made their way from the Gilmor Homes the squat brick public West Baltimore housing development where Mr. Gray was arrested on April 12, through the sparkling downtown harbor, a major tourist attraction here, before assembling on a plaza at City Hall.

Protesters smashed windows of some cars and blocked the corner of Pratt and Light Streets, a major intersection that is a main route to Interstate 95 and out of the city. The department used its Twitter feed to urge demonstrators to remain peaceful, and blamed the problems on “isolated pockets of people from out of town causing disturbances downtown.” Late in the ballgame, police briefly instructed fans to remain in the stadium “until further notice,” but the crowd was eventually released.

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