Scenes of Chaos in Baltimore as Thousands Protest Freddie Gray’s DeathBy SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and ASHLEY SOUTHALLAPRIL 25, 2015
BALTIMORE — A largely peaceful protest over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a spinal cord injury in police custody, gave way to scattered scenes of chaos here on Saturday night, as demonstrators smashed a downtown storefront window and damaged police cruisers, while officers broke up skirmishes and made arrests near Camden Yards.
Hours earlier, a racially diverse and mostly calm crowd of demonstrators marched through the streets, clogging intersections, carrying signs and shouting, “All night, all day, we’re gonna fight for Freddie Gray!” Some had come from New York and Ferguson, Mo., and authorities here had warned against “outside agitators” coming to stir up trouble.
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Mr. Gray was arrested on April 12 after making eye contact with a police lieutenant and then fleeing, according to the police account. He was tackled by police officers, who held him down and handcuffed him before dragging him to a police van. A bystander recorded the arrest on video using his cellphone.
Until Friday, efforts to pinpoint how and when Mr. Gray was injured had focused on what happened inside the van, with a lawyer for the officers involved playing down the suggestion, based on the cellphone video, that Mr. Gray had been hurt before he was placed inside. In the video, Mr. Gray can be heard asking for assistance while on the ground and screaming while being dragged to the police van.
The police acknowledged gaps in the timeline involving three stops made by the van. According to Police Department accounts, at the first stop, officers placed leg bars on Mr. Gray, who they said had become irate; the second stop was made to pick up another arrestee. At the third, Mr. Gray had to be picked up off the floor.
Mr. Gray’s family said that his spinal cord had been 80 percent severed, and that his voice box had been crushed. He died at a hospital last Sunday, a week after his arrest.
...more at linkhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/us/ba ... death.html