Baltimore violence updates: 10 arrested after curfew, police say
After a 10 p.m. curfew took effect in Baltimore on Tuesday, many protesters went home, but police and remaining crowds clashed in the streets. On Monday, rioting broke out hours after the funeral of Freddie Gray, 25, who died after suffering a spine injury while in police custody.
What we know:
Curfew darkens red-light district
Police ride on an armored vehicle through a riot-racked area of Baltimore after a 10 p.m. curfew went into effect.
David Goldman / Associated Press
Before there was the upscale Inner Harbor, the Baltimore Aquarium or the Baltimore Convention Center, there was the Block, Baltimore's once-famous zone of strip clubs and sex shops.
But on Tuesday night, the Block - some of whose emporiums advertise that they are open 24 hours a day - was closed and dark by 10 p.m., when the citywide curfew went into effect.
The curfew is “horrible,” said a woman who dances under the name Storm. “Other people are allowed to go to work, but people don't realize that a lot of us girls work night times.”
10 arrested after curfew
Two arrests were for looting, and one was for disorderly conduct, Police Commissioner Anthony Batts told reporters.
Batts said three or four youths were arrested earlier in the evening in the city's south side, where an officer was injured in a rock-throwing incident.
After the curfew was instituted, Batts said, “We do not have a lot of activity or movement throughout the city as a whole.” The curfew lifts at 5 a.m.
-- Ryan Parker and Matt Pearce
The streets grow quiet
One area has emptied
Fire and gas
FOR THE RECORD
April 28, 9:37 p.m.: It appears the thrown object was not a Molotov cocktail.
Police advance on demonstrators
Police deploy pepper balls, tear gas
This video contains profanity.
Police may have begun firing tear gas or smoke canisters
Crowd becoming aggressive
Police telling news media to leave too
Media members, however, are not subject to the curfew.
Rep. Cummings urges protesters to go home
U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, whose district includes Baltimore, is pleading with demonstrators to obey the 10 p.m. curfew ordered by the city.
-- Noah Bierman
Police ask crowd to go home
'Don't give anyone excuses'
Noah Bierman / Los Angeles Times
At the site of the burned-out CVS pharmacy, a community leader from behind the police line is urging the crowd to disperse. "Please go home. Don't give anyone excuses to do something that's not right.... It's not about selling out."
One man on a bicycle has been stationary in front of the police line as if waiting to see what happens at 10 p.m., the start of the curfew.
Another man pleads with members of the media to leave, believing it will make the crowd go as well and save lives.
-- Noah Bierman
Violence bubbles up, and arrests begin
Police said at least one officer was injured.
Elsewhere, protesters disperse, heading home before curfew takes effect.
Curfew is 20 minutes away
Tension at a site of last night's unrest
On Monday night, a police vehicle was set on fire at this intersection. The crowd now is tense but not violent.
Live video: A view from the street
This video might contain harsh language. Scroll down for new updates.
Baltimore schools to reopen Wednesday
Baltimore's schools will reopen Wednesday, Baltimore City Public Schools Chief Executive Gregory E. Thornton said in a letter to parents. Counselors, social workers and psychologists will be on hand to help students when they return to classes, and teachers and principals are “planning activities that will help students learn from the past days' events,” Thornton said.
After-school sports and activities will resume as usual, and district officials are in “constant contact” with police and city officials in case further unrest happens, he said.
Thornton said canceling Tuesday's classes was necessary “because of ongoing cleanup in some neighborhoods, lack of transportation through the Mondawmin transit hub [where rioting first broke out Monday], and most important, the need for district staff to plan and make arrangements to ensure the safety of students and staff at school for the remainder of the week.”
-- Matt Pearce
Plenty of emotion, with focus on peace
Night falls, and crowds stay
A few miles away, at North and Pennsylvania avenues:
Some 'us and them' attitude visible
A peaceful push into the crowd
Some welcome good news
The Rev. Donte Hickman, whose church was building a senior center in Baltimore that burned down Monday night, might be able to rebuild the facility sooner than he expected.
When Hickman spoke with ABC2 News on Tuesday, the news station also set up an interview with an architect in Indianapolis to deliver the pastor a surprise. Michael Bluitt, vice president of HCO Church builders, offered to help rebuild the center.
"Your tenacity is really what moved me, and your faith," Bluitt said on ABC2. "God makes no mistakes. He wants you to have greater than what you initially anticipated."
Bluitt said his firm would create a conceptual rendering of the new senior center and set up a design consultation.
Baltimore councilman opposes calling rioters 'thugs'
Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes, on CNN, said calling rioters "thugs" is the same as calling them the N-word. A visually agitated Stokes said during a live interview that he was not happy with the wording used by both President Obama and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. While Stokes said he did not condone their behavior, he was against that label.
-- Ryan Parker
Orioles will make history Wednesday
The Baltimore Orioles series finale will be the first game closed to the public in baseball history, according to John Thorn, Major League Baseball's official historian.
Consequently, the game also will set a major league record for lowest attendance at a game.
Looting and neighborhood demographics
Racial makeup of neighborhoods
Those between ages 18-24 without a high school diploma
Those between ages 18-24 who do not have a high school diploma
Median household income
Viral video mom: 'I don't want him to be a Freddie Gray'
Toya Graham, the mother seen on a viral video slapping and yelling at her son as she hauled him away from Baltimore's riots, tells “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” why she did it.
“He gave me eye contact, and at that point, you know, not even thinking about cameras or anything like that. ... That's my only son, and at the end of the day, I don't want him to be a Freddie Gray,” Graham says in a CBS video .
Her son, who is identified as a 16-year-old in a Variety article , reportedly was protesting and wearing a mask when Graham tracked him down.
FOR THE RECORD
April 28, 4:13 p.m.:
An earlier version of this post said the son was described as a 16-year-old in a Vanity Fair article. It was a Variety article.
--Ann Haley
City is prepared for tonight, governor says
Officials aren't sure there won't be any more violence in Baltimore, but they struck a hopeful note.
As curfew announced, peaceful protests continue in northwest Baltimore
As Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Anthony Batts convene a news conference to announce a 24-hour curfew, peaceful protest continues down Pennsylvania Avenue in northwest Baltimore.
Mayor, police commissioner hold news conference
Musical respite during protest
The crowd seems peaceful at the protest site, where there's singing, a drum circle and a barbecue.
Crime decreasing in Freddie Gray's neighborhood, police data show
There has been less crime in recent years in the West Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray was arrested, although the area has long been racked by drug violence and gang activity, according to Baltimore Police Department data.
There were 960 reported crimes in Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester and Harlem Park sections in 2014, a 15% dip from 1,134 in 2010, records show. Aggravated assaults (felonies) and common assaults (misdemeanors), generally considered the best indicators of overall crime, have also declined since 2010. Common assaults, which peaked with 321 reported incidents in 2011, fell each year afterward, dipping 30% in 2014, as compared with 2011.
Burglaries followed a similar arc, with reported crimes declining in 2012 and 2013 after a slight surge in 2011.
The neighborhoods are overwhelmingly populated by black residents, and police records show most arrests there since 2013 were of black men charged with narcotics offenses.
A discomforting scene outside CVS
“We worked very hard to get CVS to come here,” Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told reporters earlier. “What happened last night means that more people are struggling.”
Baltimore church leader whose building burned during riots defends mayor
The Rev. Donte Hickman, whose church was building a senior center that burned down Monday night, told MSNBC that Baltimore's mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, is doing her best to navigate through the uproar and violence.
“Who would've anticipated that something like this would happen?” he said. “This fire last night just put a light on a very dark situation.”
Officials are still investigating the cause of the fire, but Hickman said he believes the fire was deliberately set.
The senior center was more than just 60 units of affordable housing, Hickman said. The building also would have housed behavioral counseling, life coaching and HIV treatment, among other services.
Hickman said that he overcame major obstacles during his youth and he feels that it's his job to help those in similar circumstances.
“Dr. [Martin Luther] King said that riots are the language of those who are unheard,” he said. “So many of our children are just looked over -- it seems like nobody cares.”
Baltimore violence prompts Orioles schedule change
The Baltimore Orioles announced several changes to their upcoming home-game schedule because of safety concerns caused by violent clashes between rioters and police in the city.
After postponing the first two games of a three-game series against the visiting Chicago White Sox, the Orioles announced that the Wednesday series finale would be closed to the general public.
The Orioles also said the team's weekend home series against the Tampa Bay Rays will not take place at Camden Yards. Instead, it will take place at the Rays' home, Tropicana Field.
The decision to postpone and reschedule the games was made after Orioles officials consulted with Major League Baseball and city officials, the team said.
Councilman: Violent youth don't represent Baltimore
In an interview with CNN, Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes said the city's leadership is “disconnected” from the public.
Some of Baltimore's youth don't “feel respected so they don't know respect,” Stokes said. But the youth who violently took to the streets and damaged buildings don't represent Baltimore, he said.
"Today's pictures are the real Baltimore, not last night's pictures," Stokes said, because they show young people “out there on the streets cleaning up immediately.”
'The Wire' creator David Simon, cast members tell rioters to 'go home'
David Simon, creator of the hit HBO series "The Wire" — long and widely praised for its depiction of Baltimore's race and class issues — has written a blog post calling for an end to the riots that grew out of peaceful protests Monday.
"If you can't seek redress and demand reform without a brick in your hand, you risk losing this moment for all of us in Baltimore," he wrote on his personal website Monday night. "Turn around. Go home. Please."
Simon's sentiments, which were echoed this morning by President Obama (see below), were also shared by "Wire" cast members including Wendell Pierce (who played Det. William "Bunk" Moreland) and Andre Royo (Bubbles) on Twitter.
Cast members Michael Kenneth Williams (who played the charismatic informant and fan favorite Omar Little) and Lance Reddick (Lt. Cedrick Daniels), however, have been posting and retweeting others' more sympathetic views, including a photo of a protester in a gas mask (Williams), fist held high, and a Facebook post urging critics to consider the looters' life experiences (Reddick).
Orioles-White Sox game closed to public
Police captain: 'I think everyone in Baltimore is looking forward to peace returning'
At a news conference, Police Capt. Eric Kowalczyk gave the latest update on the situation in Baltimore, where he said at least 20 officers have been injured.
A crowd on North Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue has remained peaceful.
"That's what we're used to seeing in Baltimore," he said.
He added that officers will be enforcing a 10 p.m. curfew.
"I think everyone in Baltimore is looking forward to peace returning," Kowalcyzk said.
And here are more updates:
Baltimore gangs: 'We did not make truce to harm cops'
Members of Baltimore gangs like the BGF, the Bloods and the Crips -- which came to a truce over the last few days in response to the peaceful protests and subsequent riots prompted by the death in police custody of 25-year-old Freddie Gray -- have spoken to local news media about their negative portrayal in the media.
"We did not make that truce to harm cops," one of a group of unnamed representatives told WBAL-TV 11, an NBC affiliate. "We're not about to allow y'all to paint this picture of us."
He said the moratorium on their myriad rivalries was agreed upon "to stop what's going on -- that's all we're trying to do. We want justice for Freddie Gray. We believe in that."
The violence "just makes us look bad," the representative added. "It's backing up what they're saying about us. They saying we animals, and we acting like savages out here."
History of police brutality in Baltimore
The Baltimore Sun published a series called "Undue Force" in September that focused on police brutality and its cost to the city.
Since 2011, the city has paid about $5.7 million over lawsuits that claim police officers beat up suspects.
More than 100 people over the last four years have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations.
According to The Baltimore Sun, victims include a 15-year-old boy on a dirt bike and an 87-year-old grandmother helping her wounded grandson.
Al Sharpton, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to meet Tuesday
The Rev. Al Sharpton will meet with Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on Tuesday to discuss the ongoing unrest in the city.
Sharpton, who has taken prominent roles in calling for justice in the recent high-profile deaths of black men in Ferguson, Mo., and New York, also plans to meet with clergy members.
The Baltimore Sun reported Tuesday that Sharpton is planning a May march from Baltimore to Washington in a call for justice for Freddie Gray.
-- Kurtis Lee
'Mom of the year' hauls young man out of riots
Video is going viral of a woman yanking a young man identified by media outlets as her son out of Baltimore's riots, then hitting and yelling at him.
She was praised by Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts: “If you saw on one scene, you had one mother who grabbed her child who had a hood on his head and she started smacking him on the head because she was so embarrassed. I wish I had more parents that took charge of their kids out there tonight.”
Fox News contributor Charles Payne called her “mom of the year” on Twitter, a sentiment that quickly was picked up.
--Ann Haley
More on that political sparring
Did the city move too slowly in seeking help to keep the peace? In comments she made after the death of Freddie Gray, did Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake open the door for protests to turn violent when she said "... we gave those who wished to destroy space to do that, as well"?
Asked if the mayor should have called for help sooner, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan replied that he didn't want to question what Baltimore officials were doing: “They're all under tremendous stress. We're all on one team.”
Obama: Violence in Baltimore 'counterproductive'
President Obama on Tuesday offered comments in the wake of unrest in Baltimore surrounding the death of Freddie Gray.
In his remarks, Obama announced the Department of Justice was opening an investigation into Gray's death.
He also addressed ongoing tensions between police departments and minority communities.
Obama on tensions between minority communities and police.
--Kurtis Lee
Baltimore County police gear up
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan: 'We will be stronger after this'
In a midday news conference, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan offered his assessment of the riots that overshadowed peaceful protests Monday night.
Then he was prompted by reporters to address the issue of slow response time on city and state levels.
Potential 2016 candidates weigh in on Baltimore riots
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is exploring a run for the Democratic presidential nomination, will return to the state on Tuesday. O'Malley was in England and Ireland, where he was delivering paid speeches.
"All of us share a profound feeling of grief for Freddie Gray and his family," he said in a statement during the unrest in Baltimore on Monday night. "We must come together as one city to transform this moment of loss and pain into a safer and more just future for all of Baltimore's people."
Meanwhile, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for the 2016 nomination, tweeted about the Baltimore riots on Monday night.
Former Johns Hopkins University neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a Republican who also is weighing a presidential run, called the riots and looting in the city “very unfortunate.”
“It is vital to remember that the best way to create positive change is through peaceful conversation and policy ideas that display a commitment to resolution,” said Carson.
-- Kurtis Lee
National Guard, police lining Baltimore streets
Baltimore Police today provided security for North Avenue, which experienced widespread looting last night.
Baltimore mayor defends handling of Freddie Gray crisis
An exhausted Stephanie Rawlings-Blake greets a concerned citizen the morning after citywide riots.
Mark Makela / Getty Images
“You can't see everything that I see, you don't know all the different moving pieces,” Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told reporters Tuesday morning.
“There are always going to be armchair quarterbacks that have never sat in my seat that see things differently, but this isn't the first emergency that I've had to deal with and I know you have to put in the work and manage the crisis on the ground.”
Orioles game Tuesday night postponed
Six arrested in L.A. police protests
As riots raged in Baltimore on Monday night, six people were arrested in South Los Angeles for allegedly refusing to obey police orders to disperse.
The L.A. protests involved up to 50 people and started outside the LAPD's 77th Division station on Broadway and ended blocks later at Florence Avenue about 11 p.m., said Sgt. Rick Rodgers.
No injuries were reported.
Al Sharpton going to Baltimore
The damage in daylight
Cleanup begins
“We worked very hard to get CVS to come here,” Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told reporters there. “What happened last night means that more people are struggling.”
Where Monday's chaos began
W.J. Hennigan / Los Angeles Times
Monday's violence in Baltimore started in the afternoon when a group of teenagers confronted a phalanx of officers. Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said a call had gone out to high school students on social media urging demonstrators to gather at the Mondawmin Mall, then move toward City Hall. He said officials had information that “a large purge of high school students” would be there.
A 2013 movie called “The Purge” was based on the idea of a temporary suspension of all law; however, the crowd did not necessarily gather with any intention of behaving lawlessly.
Batts said 250 to 300 police officers were at the mall, and they were outnumbered. Some students began pelting officers with water bottles and rocks, the Baltimore Sun reported. Things escalated from there.
Sandra Almond-Cooper, president of the Mondawmin Neighborhood Improvement Assn., told the Baltimore Sun it wasn't the first confrontation between these students and police. "These kids are just angry," she said. "These are the same kids they pull up on the corner for no reason."
-- Matt Pearce and Lauren Raab
Police feel a need to protect firefighters
Meanwhile, this isn't far from where Freddie Gray was arrested:
The Baltimore Sun's front page
Rival gangs: 'We don't want trouble' in Baltimore
Two gang members from the Crips and the Bloods called for peace Monday night in a video interview with the Baltimore Sun .
"We're here to protect our community," said Charles Shelley, a member of the Crips gang, with his arm around a Bloods member. "Him and me are supposed to be at odds right now, trying to kill each other. Now we're standing right here, hugging each other."
Earlier Monday, Baltimore police officials said they received a "credible threat" that Crips, Bloods and the Black Guerilla family would try to "take out" police officers.
"All that about the police getting hurt by certain gangs, that's false," Shelley said. "... We don't want trouble."
A city scarred and re-scarred
“Many of the areas where we're seeing disturbances today actually never recovered from the 1968 riots,” which came after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said Lawrence Brown, 36, of Baltimore, an assistant professor at Morgan State University who studies housing instability.
Brown said the best-case scenario for Baltimore would be if the Department of Justice investigates the Baltimore Police Department the same way it investigated and demanded changes from the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri. “I think if there is no indictment, then I think you see the worst -- what happened today is really only prelude,” Brown said.
-- Matt Pearce
Unrest continues
Big fire not necessarily linked to riots
Noah Bierman / Los Angeles Times
The large fire at a seniors center under construction in East Baltimore has been contained and was not necessarily related to the riots, fire officials said.
"Right now we are classifying it as a separate incident," Baltimore City Fire Department spokesman Samuel Johnson said.
Pastor Donte Hickman of Southern Baptist Church said the building was to include senior housing, affordable housing and a “transformation center” to offer workforce development, counseling and other services.
Above, a photo from earlier in the night.
-- Ryan Parker
Baltimore police chief: Riots are 'criminal acts doing damage to a community'
Top cop in Baltimore battled unrest as police chief of Oakland
Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts in 2010, when he was chief of police in Oakland.
Eric Risberg / Associated Press
Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, who struggled Monday to stop rioting in the city, spent most of his law enforcement career in California, confronting unrest during a rocky two-year tenure in Oakland.
Batts presided over street upheaval twice in 2010, when a regional transit police officer was convicted of manslaughter -- not murder -- in the shooting death of an unarmed black man at Oakland's Fruitvale Station, and when he was sentenced.
He said he saw the "disconnect" between the department and the city it served and wanted to help. He said he also took the job because of "how many young people die in the city of Oakland -- people the age of my kids, in their 20s."
-- Lee Romney
Baltimore mayor: 'We've seen what has happened when other jurisdictions have overreacted'
In a televised interview with CNN , Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she waited until Monday to ask for emergency assistance from the National Guard because she didn't want a greater police presence to escalate the violence.
Freddie Gray's sister: He 'wasn't a person for violence'
Religious leaders and the family of Freddie Gray gathered Monday night at a Baptist church in Baltimore to call for an end to looting and violence in the city.
Protests turned violent after funeral services for Gray, a 25-year-old Baltimore resident who died April 19 after being injured in police custody.
During the televised news conference, the attorney for Freddie Gray's family, William H. Murphy Jr., said the riots were not "a white-black issue," but an issue of human rights.
Behind him stood more than two dozen neighborhood representatives and gang members, who also condemned the violence.
"How many of you know somebody close to you, or yourselves, who have been victims of police brutality? Please raise your hand," Murphy said.
Nearly everyone standing behind him did.
Gray's twin sister spoke softly and briefly.
"Freddie Gray wasn't a person for violence," she said. "Freddie Gray wasn't a person to break into stores."
At least some rioters are local teens
Police say gangs planned to kill officers
Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts also gave general updates on the day's events.
What's happening where
For an interactive map of the lootings and closures in Baltimore, click here .
Baltimore mayor: 'You can't care about your community and do what they did'
In comments to reporters that were televised late Monday night, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake condemned the looting and violence on city streets that continued after dark.
"You hear people say that they care about their community," Rawlings-Blake said. "But you can't care about your community and do what they did."
Violence had harmed neighborhoods that needed help, she said, including the area surrounding a CVS pharmacy that burned Monday afternoon.
"What does it solve?" Rawlings-Blake said. "Those individuals who fought to get those jobs at CVS -- what are they going to do? ... How is the looting going to help them?"
She added that those who were rioting had "exploited" their freedom to protest.
“We will have order, and we we will have peace," Rawlings-Blake said. "There are too many of us in Baltimore who believe that Baltimore is much better than what you're seeing today."
Amid chaos, wishes for peace
Brandon Scott, 31, city counselor and cofounder of 300 Men March Against Violence, said volunteers in his group have been walking into the most volatile neighborhoods trying to defuse tension but have seen looting and violence.
"It's just utter chaos," he said. "You're seeing cowards leading people astray."
-- Noah Bierman
'We are going to riot until we die'
Joseph Tanfani / Los Angeles Times
At Church Square, an East Baltimore shopping center with several clothing stores and small businesses, looting erupted about 9 p.m. Eastern time. Throngs of looters dashed into stores and emerged carrying boxes of shoes and armfuls of clothing. Nearly all of the looters appeared to be teenagers and young men. One shouted: “We are going to riot until we die.”
Nearly an hour passed before police showed up in this largely residential neighborhood. A cruiser approached the scene about 10 p.m., followed by an armored vehicle. Officers chased one looter, while the rest largely scattered into darkened streets.
Ernie Nicholson, 54, of West Baltimore stood on the sidewalk and watched helplessly as looters ran past. “I don't know how it could have been averted. It's something I feel the city is really overdue for. Police just do what they want to do,” he said, adding, “I'm not saying this is the answer to it.”
David Simon to rioters: 'You risk losing this moment for all of us in Baltimore'
The "anger and the selfishness and the brutality" of the rioters in Baltimore disrespects the memory of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old man who died in police custody more than a week ago, writer David Simon said Monday night in a short blog post .
Simon is the creator of the hit HBO series "The Wire," and the author of two books about crime and police in Baltimore.
"First things first," Simon wrote . "Yes, there is a lot to be argued, debated, addressed. And this moment, as inevitable as it has sometimes seemed, can still, in the end, prove transformational, if not redemptive for our city. Changes are necessary and voices need to be heard. All of that is true and all of that is still possible, despite what is now loose in the streets.
"But now in this moment 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. But this, now, in the streets, is an affront to that man's memory and a dimunition of the absolute moral lesson that underlies his unnecessary death.
"If you can't seek redress and demand reform without a brick in your hand, you risk losing this moment for all of us in Baltimore. Turn around. Go home. Please."
Baltimore councilman: 'I'm pissed off'
In interviews with the Baltimore Sun , local leaders expressed dismay and frustration over rioting and looting.
"I'm pissed off," councilman Brandon Scott said. "This is the city that I love. We can cannot stand idle and let cowards ruin our city. If you are an adult and you are out there participating in this, you are ruining the future for these young people."
The neighborhood that the rioters had moved toward, Scott said, is "still burned down from 1968," when the city weathered more than a week of violence after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"King said a riot is the language of the unheard," councilman Bill Henry said. "If we don't bother to teach our kids other languages, then we better start hearing them."
Threat to 'take out' police officers prompts heightened LAPD security
Los Angeles Police Department officers are riding in pairs in patrol cars after Baltimore police received a "credible threat" against law enforcement officers across the United States, officials said Monday.
A so-called "Blue Alert" sent by the Baltimore Police Department told law enforcement agencies across the country that they had gathered intelligence about a threat from the Black Guerilla family, Crips and Bloods to "take out" police officers.
Riots evoke the past
The Baltimore riots of 1968 erupted in the wake of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. They lasted several days, and six people were killed, 700 were injured, 1,000 small businesses were looted or burned out and 5,800 people were arrested, according to the Baltimore Sun.
-- Ryan Parker
L.A. leaders condemn 'lawless, radical, out-of-control, disobedient' riots in Baltimore
In a press conference Monday night, law enforcement and religious leaders condemned the violence in Baltimore and urged Angelenos to remain calm.
-- Kate Mather
PlayStations, piles of clothes among looted items
Baltimore schools will be closed Tuesday
All city-run primary and secondary schools will be closed Tuesday, Baltimore City Public Schools spokeswoman Edie House Foster told The Times.
She declined to comment further, directing a reporter to an earlier statement expressing concern for the safety of the 85,000 students in the city's 188 schools.
"We hope to treat this situation not only as a teachable moment but also a time for thoughtful reflection on how we can reduce conflict and violence in our society," said Shanaysha M. Sauls, the chair of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners, in a prepared statement. "We will continue to be vigilant in our support for all of the city's young people."
--Laura J. Nelson
Looted mall is secured
"We gotta think about what we're doing here," substitute teacher Loren Braswell, 53, said nearby earlier in the evening. "I love my city of Baltimore, but people gotta think rationally and they're not doing that right now."
If no actions are taken against officers in Freddie Gray's death, he said, "The community's not hearing that. If nothing happens, I think the city's going to burn down."
--W.J. Hennigan
Freddie Gray's attorney: Rioting is 'dangerous to the movement'
The Washington Post interviewed the attorney representing the family of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old Baltimore man who died April 19 after his spine was severed in police custody.
For the most part, William H. Murphy Jr. said what would be expected during a riot: that rioting and looting in Baltimore could "damage the justice we're trying to get for Freddie," and that Gray's family was devastated by the violence.
But, he added, rioters may find that their violence backfires.
“If this becomes widespread, the mood in Baltimore will shift from what went wrong with the police and Freddie, to how the police are doing a great job at securing this chaos,” he said. “This won't solve the police problem. This is dangerous to the movement.”
--Laura J. Nelson
'Never seen human beings act this way'
First test for new Atty. Gen. Lynch
'If you do not need to go out, please do not.'
Johns Hopkins University students, faculty and staff should not leave campus Monday night unless absolutely necessary, school officials said in a statement.
"If you must venture out, please check news reports first," provost Robert C. Lieberman wrote on the university's website. "If you are on campus and must go out, check with a uniformed security officer or call Security to be certain that there are no late-breaking developments."
The only incidence of looting was near the university's Peabody Institute, near Interstate 83, officials said.
"The situation is volatile and fluid, however, and we are monitoring it closely," Lieberman wrote. "We are in constant communication with law enforcement and will continue to keep the community updated as circumstances warrant."
--Laura J. Nelson
Building in flames
Then I called the president
Take cover, Baltimore
Police call for reinforcements
Looting 'ain't for Freddie'
This video may contain profanity.
Dozens and dozens of officers in riot gear have arrived at Baltimore's Mondawmin Mall in gray vans, intending to stop looting at the shopping center.
People had broked windows to get into the mall, and dozens flooded in. They took PlayStations, clothing, anything they could carry.
Donte Reives, 24, who works security at the University of Maryland, was in the parking lot. "You hate to see your city like this. We're better than this," he said. "Everyone is not doing this for the right reasons. This ain't for Freddie."
--W.J. Hennigan
Cops with billy clubs at the mall
Police line
Mayor imposes curfew
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
