Responding to the riots that marked one of Baltimore’s “darkest days,” National Guard troops took up positions in the besieged city late Monday into Tuesday morning in an attempt to secure America’s latest flashpoint of racial unrest.
Gov. Larry Hogan deployed the Maryland National Guard on Monday night, and guard members were coordinating with police to hold riot-scarred portions of the city. A National Guard spokesman, Col. Charles Kohler, said the force could soon number 5,000 soldiers, according to the Associated Press.
Shortly after the Monday afternoon funeral for Freddie Gray, a black man who died of a spinal injury he suffered while in police custody earlier this month, rioters torched buildings, destroyed police cars and threw projectiles at cops and responding firefighters in West Baltimore. The violence spread to the eastern portion of the city, and left at least 15 law enforcement officers hurt, six of them seriously.
The Baltimore Police Department responded to a rumor that one of the officers was in grave condition, tweeting: “THIS IS NOT TRUE.”
Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said he visited the six seriously injured cops in a hospital trauma center. “I told them how proud I was of them and how courageous they were,” he said.
BRATTON’S ADVICE TO EMBATTLED BALTIMORE POLICE: LISTEN
No fatalities were reported overnight, and officials did not release an estimate of the number of people injured. Several journalists were brutalized by mobs while covering the chaos. Police made several arrests.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake instituted a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew across the city, and said it would remain in effect through May 4.
The riots appeared to die down by 3 a.m., as social media updates from the streets slowed and the Baltimore Police Department tweeted it had “called tow trucks to remove damaged cars.”
But the damage, both real and psychological, was significant.
“Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs, who in a senseless way are trying to tear down what so many have fought for,” Rawlings-Blake said Monday evening at a news conference.
She later tweeted that Monday marked “one of our darkest days.”
Freddie Gray’s twin sister, Fredericka Gray, condemned the lawlessness late Monday, saying her late brother would not support such carnage.
“I think violence is wrong … I don’t like it at all,” she said.
VIOLENT CLASH BETWEEN BALTIMORE PROTESTERS AND POLICE: PHOTOS
A Facebook group created Monday night, asking residents to help clean up the city at 10 a.m. Tuesday, attracted nearly 2,000 followers overnight.
The unruly crowds that initiated the rioting were composed mainly of young people, and the unrest began shortly after dismissal at the city’s public schools. Police pleaded with parents to make sure their children were taken home.
After dark, rioters set a fire that spread to a sprawling building under construction on the city’s east side. A fireball lit up the sky as flames ripped through the Mary Harvin Transformation Center, a community-based organization that supports youths and families.
The crowds were made up of “lawless” people, a police official said as surrounding law enforcement agencies sent in reinforcements.
“What we do know is they are criminals,” Police Captain Eric Kowalczyk said at a news conference.
Officers would respond with “appropriate” force to quiet the neighborhoods, he said.
“You’re going to see tear gas,” Kowalczyk said. “You’re going to see pepper balls.”
Gov. Hogan spoke to President Obama on Monday as he prepared to declare a state of emergency. The commander-in-chief supported the action and urged law enforcement to practice restraint, the governor told reporters.
Police and National Guard troops would act appropriately, but they would make sure “lawless gangs of thugs” wouldn’t take over the city, Hogan said.
“Today’s looting and acts of violence in Baltimore will not be tolerated,” Hogan said in an earlier statement.
“There is a significant difference between protesting and violence, and those committing these acts will be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law.”
The owners of an Italian grocery and deli claimed their shop was destroyed during the pandemonium.
“Cafe has been destroyed. Deli. Is next. Thanks baltimore,” a message on Trinacria Deli’s Facebook page said.
The Baltimore Orioles canceled Monday’s game against the Chicago White Sox, and the Maryland Transit Administration halted train service into downtown.
Johns Hopkins University sent an email to its students about 10:15 p.m. warning of danger from “four non-affiliates” on the school’s main Homewood campus. The university sent an update minutes later saying three of the individuals had left and one was arrested, but it advised students to “remain sheltered.” The school shut down several of its buildings overnight and ended some shuttle services early.
Baltimore public schools canceled classes for Tuesday.
Freddie Gray was stopped by police after a foot chase on April 12, which cops said was brought on by him making eye contact with officers as he passed them by. A cellphone video of his bust showed Gray screaming for medical care as officers loaded him into a van. While in police custody he suffered a severed spinal cord, and was later taken to a hospital. He slipped into a coma and died a week later.
Several officers who were involved in his arrest have been suspended without pay, and police continue to investigate. Cops have not said how Gray suffered the spinal injury.
Baltimore has seen protests nearly every day since Gray’s death, but they were peaceful until recently. Police arrested 31 people Saturday. They blamed the flare-ups that night on “outside agitators” who were instigating the violence and destruction.
David Simon, creator of Baltimore-based drama “The Wire,” said there were important issues to debate in what is known as the Charm City, but blasted Monday’s intense violence and looting.
In a statement he said the “anger and the selfishness and the brutality of those claiming the right to violence in Freddie Gray’s name needs to cease.
“There was real power and potential in the peaceful protests that spoke in Mr. Gray’s name initially, and there was real unity at his homegoing today,” Simon added. “But this, now, in the streets, is an affront to that man’s memory and a diminution of the absolute moral lesson that underlies his unnecessary death.”
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