BALTIMORE, (Reuters) – Police and National Guard troops moved to disperse protesters in Baltimore last night after a curfew took effect a day after the worst rioting in the United States in years.
Shortly after a citywide curfew took effect at 10 p.m. EDT, police in riot gear ordered a few hundred protesters to disperse, at an intersection in West Baltimore that was the scene of the worst rioting on Monday.
The crowd responded by throwing bottles and jeering at the police as the line of police began to advance.
Overhead, police helicopters also ordered the crowd to disperse. Just ahead of the curfew, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake went to the intersection where protesters had gathered and pleaded with them to go home.
Police said the only exceptions to the curfew were medical emergencies and work.
On Monday, shops were looted, buildings burned to the ground, 20 officers were injured and police arrested more than 250 people in the violence following the funeral of a 25-year-old black man who died in a hospital on April 19 a week after sustaining injuries in police custody.
The death of Freddie Gray gave new energy to the public outcry that flared last year after police killings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri; New York City and elsewhere.
