Thousands of police officers in Baltimore, Maryland threw tear gas and fired rubber bullets as they marched on about 100 defiant protesters who refused to go home and heed a city-wide curfew Tuesday night.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan ordered 2,000 National Guardsmen and 1,000 law enforcement officers onto the streets to head off a repeat of the violence that erupted Monday night in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods in response to the death 25-year-old local man Freddie Gray.
About twenty minutes after curfew, a line of police in riot armor started slowing marching on the remaining protesters, who responded by throwing plastic and glass bottles and laying down in the street to block the cops in a show of civil disobedience.
'This combined force will not tolerate violence or looting,' Governor Hogan warned.
The small crowd started to disperse though when police began throwing smoke bombs and firing rubber batons. When a few of the protesters still refused to move, police fired a volley of at least four cans of tear gas into the crowd. An ABC reporter was engulfed by a cloud of gas and had to be told to run as tears streamed from her face.
By midnight, the streets were mostly cleared when Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts held a press conference.
Batts said that 10 people had been arrested that day - two for looting, one for disorderly conduct and seven for violating curfew. Batts went on to say that the relatively low amount of arrests were evidence that the curfew worked.
'One of the biggest thing is citizens are safe, the city is stable and we hope to keep it that way,' Batts said.
The only people in Baltimore allowed to be out on the streets Tuesday night were members of the media, and those going to work or experiencing a medical emergency.
Shortly after curfew Tuesday night, a group of about 100 protesters and a large number of journalists remained in the streets.
Law enforcement gave the group 20 extra minutes to leave the area, but when they refused to move, the officers started moving in a line, directing them out of the area.
At first, the officers shot smoke canisters which proved ineffective in the wind and due to protesters throwing them right back at their ranks.
One protester accidentally started a small fire when he threw a cannister back at police and it hit a tree outside a public library.
Luckily the flames were put out quickly and the library will be open tomorrow.
When the small contingent of protesters still remained in the street, officers started throwing tear gas and pelting protesters with rubber bullets and pellets filled with pepper spray - which seemed to disperse the remaining rioters from the street.
In a separate incident in south Baltimore, a small group of protesters injured a police officer by throwing a rock and they were promptly taken into custody.
(dailymail.co.uk)
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