About 2,000 marchers walked their way through the Baltimore city hall to seek justice for Freddie Gray's death. 25-year old Gray lost his life the previous week inside a police vehicle, as reported in Deustche Welle. Gray passed away on April 19 after having sustained a spinal injury while in police detainment.
Marchers broke car windows. About 100 protesters threw bottles to a couple of cops, according to authorities. Protesters destroyed the windows of a couple of commercial establishments, as well, as revealed by Baltimore police commissioner, Anthony Batts. Batts announced that 12 individuals were arrested after resisting law enforcement actions. The violent clash brought about injury on one policeman.
According to The Baltimore Sun, demonstrators yelled:
"Killers!"
"You can't get away with this!"
"Hands up don't shoot!"
Police guarding the Howard and Pratt streets intersection responded, by yelling:
"Move back. Move back."
Baltimore city mayor, Rawlings-Blake, condemned such violent acts, saying:
"I am profoundly disappointed to see the violence in our city this evening,"
"Freddie's father and mother do not want violence, violence does not get justice."
Rawlings-Blake called on the protesters to stop violence and adhere to peace, according to The New York Times. She said:
"If you're going to come here, come here to help us, not to hurt us."
Baltimore security guard, Omar Newberns, cited his worries over the grant of justice due unto Gray's death. Newberns was vocal about his concerns should policemen possibly accountable for Gray's death are not prosecuted and convicted. He said:
"This is a powder keg right now...New York and Ferguson and all those other places are just preliminary to introduce it to the nation...It could become another Watts. If things don't get taken care of here, the whole nation could be set afire. I don't want that to happen."
A Manhattan activist from the Peoples Power Assemblies, Larry Holmes, enlightened the crowd about the urgent need to be aware of the ills of brutality in law enforcement, saying:
"They need a little history...Martin Luther King was an outside agitator. Malcolm X was an agitator. Jesus Christ was an agitator."
"You can't keep a problem like police brutality a local thing,"
"The world is watching Baltimore now."
