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Updated 8pm
A NIGHT-TIME CURFEW restored a semblance of order to badly scarred Baltimore earlier today after riots dragged it into the national debate over how US police treat young black men.
Thousands of military and police reinforcements took up positions on the streets of Baltimore yesterday after a night of unrest on Monday saw stores looted, more than 140 vehicles burned, 20 police wounded and more than 250 suspects arrested.
Projectiles thrown
Police fired smoke bombs and pepper pellets at protesters who defied the citywide clear-the-streets order starting at 10 pm.
Protesters threw bottles and other projectiles at a line of riot police protecting themselves with shields.
But the scene was a far cry from the spasm of rioting and looting on Monday in which roving gangs of youths torched buildings and cars and ransacked shops in poor areas of the northeast American city of 620,000 beset with high unemployment and pockets of severe poverty.
‘Balance needs to be restored’
Hillary Clinton weighed in on the unrest, saying that “balance” should be restored in the US criminal justice system.
She also said that all police officers should be outfitted with body cameras, to protect people “on both sides of the lens”.
She said African American men are more often stopped by police, charged and jailed, and said trust between police and the public must be “urgently” rebuilt.
There is something profoundly wrong when African-American men are still far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes, and sentenced to longer prison terms than are given to white counterparts. We need to restore balance to our criminal justice system.
Clinton said a string of high-profile deaths of unarmed African-American men in police hands should provoke wide reform, not only in the justice system.
These recent tragedies should galvanize us to come together as a nation to find our balance again.
We must urgently begin to rebuild the bonds of trust and respect among Americans. Between police and citizens, yes, but also across society.
Clinton called for all police officers across the country to be outfitted with body cameras to “improve transparency and accountability”.
It will protect people on both sides of the lens. For every tragedy caught on tape, there surely have been many more that remain invisible.
‘The city is stable’
“The curfew is in fact working. Citizens are safe. The city is stable,” Police Commissioner Anthony Batts told a midnight news conference.
A total of 10 people were arrested, seven of them for curfew violation.
That compared to more than 250 on Monday.
After midnight, after tear gas clouds forced protesters to disperse, the streets were largely clear of protesters.
TV footage showed that one intersection that was ground zero of Monday’s mayhem was deserted but for police and other security forces.
Nervous authorities imposed the emergency night-time curfew at 10pm (2am Irish time) in a bid to stave off more violence.
But several hundred protesters initially refused to clear the tense streets according to TV estimates, and a fire was started near a library.
A line of heavily equipped riot police moved on the crowd of mainly young, black men, who lobbed back whatever they could get their hands on.
Police responded with pepper pellets and fired smoke bombs, and appeared to have quickly and successfully dispersed the crowd.
Armored police vehicles moved in to help enforce the curfew, which was to be lifted at 5 am today and then re-imposed each night for a week.
National Guard troops were deployed to back up police in the gritty port city where the violence and looting erupted on Monday after the funeral of 25-year-old African-American man Freddie Gray, who died after suffering severe spinal injuries during an arrest earlier this month.
Earlier in the day, President Barack Obama condemned Monday’s rioting. But he warned that incidents in recent months “raise troubling questions” about the policing of black communities in the United States.
Last year’s fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, triggered coast-to-coast protests.
“Since Ferguson… we have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals — primarily African American, often poor — in ways that raise troubling questions,” the president said.
I think there are police departments that have to do some soul-searching.
I think there’s some communities that have to do some soul-searching. I think we as a country have to do some soul-searching. This is not new. It’s been going on for decades.
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Where are the quotas for bin men, block layers or plumbers??? It’s an honest question, for the sake of equality we need to get them numbers even. It’s not like the CAO is an unbiased system that doesn’t take gender into account and allows people to chose the future of their own free will. Also I clearly remember when voting that on the ballot it said I could only vote for men and I didn’t have a free choice to choose who I wanted to vote for regardless of gender.
Men make up the other 50% yet less than 1% of men are on boards or are elected. Yet they have the majority in prison, the majority unemployed, the majority that commit suicide, the majority working in outdoor Laborious jobs, the majority working 5 days a week or more.
I’m all for gender equality but not by quotas and certainly not for TDs where all those that run and are elected can be either gender
Gender quotas are by their nature are discriminatory, which is ironic when the wokesters are trying to abolish discrimination
@Alan Biddulph: They call it ‘positive descrimination’ believe it or not…
There’s at least a 50% quota of women on TV commentating on mens sport.
@JG: and the vast majority not very good at it
@Peter Walsh: in fairness neither are most of the men
Still perputating the gender pay myth. It has been well and truly debunked but still quoted as fact by the bad opinion project on the journal. A calculation so basic and without any nuance.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlynborysenko/2020/03/31/great-news-ladies-the-gender-pay-gap-is-a-myth/?sh=2d5c5bf83b34
https://time.com/3222543/wage-pay-gap-myth-feminism/
As I read somewhere recently there is a gender earnings gap. But that is merely due ro personal decisions like tour line of work or having children and deciding not to be in work for long periods of time, not the big bad ‘Patriachtly’. Ask your husband / partner to stay at home. You can’t honestly expect to be missing from work for several years and be paid the same as someone who has been present the whole time?
Would you prefer the best brain surgeon to operate on you or one chosen by a quota system?
I hope some day car insurance costs will be the same for both genders…
@Seamus Quaide: they already are. EU gender directive means you charge the same
Men make up the other 50% yet less than 1% of men are on boards or are elected. Yet they have the majority in prison, the majority unemployed, the majority that commit suicide, the majority working in outdoor Laborious jobs, the majority working 5 days a week or more.
I’m all for gender equality but not by quotas and certainly not for TD’s where all those that run and are elected can be either gender
My father had emergency surgery at 3am by a team coming off another emergency opp. How many hours did they work’ do or can women accomadate those hours.
So how about more men as
Secretaries and administrative assistants
Nursing, psychiatric and home health aides
Cashiers
Receptionists and information clerks
Dental hygienists
Childcare workers
Hair/makeup
Speech language pathologists
Dietitians and nutritionists
Why stop at gender/sexual orientation
What about the LGBTQ comunity. The non white comunity and then religous orientation.
Id rater the best person doing the job got the job.
With all these articles on gender equality in the Journal I wonder what is the gender breakdown if it’s editorial team and “journalists”?
Can someone please explain to those lefties, how democracy works? I’m absolutely for a quota for candidates in elections, but quotas on the outcome to get a parliament with 50% of the seats taken by women, would be the end of democracy. Why doing elections at all, when the results will be forged then? And what would next? A quota on transpersons in the parliament? Skin colour? Religious beliefs? Sexual orientation?
There’s at lest a 50% q
Affordable universal state childcare should be a no brainer and should be in place already, it would allow women equal access to work, should they chose that path, the reason many women work in low paid partime positions, is to split their time between working and caring for their children, school runs etc.
Because the prohibitive cost of child care makes working fulltime impossible, negating the money earned. It would also open access to further education and increasing skill sets for all parents.
The gender quota route would be an unnecessary once the childcare issue was addressed, because women would then also be able to choose to apply themselves to their work, in exactly the same way many of them currently view men in the workplace, as unhindered by commitments at home…
Just to be clear that last paragraph isnt intended as a trite dismissal, I am merely pointing out that if it comes to that point, of affordable state childcare genuinely giving women equal opportunities, then they can also complain about discrimination, if they then choose not to fully commit to work and career once the current barriers have been removed.
Because there is like it or not a section of women that want to have gender quota legislation put in place to give them a free pass, that allows them to work partime, while getting paid full-time, rise to positions of authority based on nothing but their gender.
This would also be an affront to any woman currently in a fulltime management position, or any position of authority, that who worked hard to get there on her own merits.
@David Van-Standen: are you saying that the gender quota legislation seeks to have women in part time jobs paid at full time rates?
@Sara McS: I am saying exactly what I said, that a section of women see it giving them a free pass and have a expectation that they should get preferential treatment, including getting paid more for doing less, based on the “because I’m worth it” mentality.
Groups that claim a gender pay gap exists across all work, fail to make direct like for like comparisons to come to conclusions, they adapt the data and ignore the fact that many woman currently work part-time, they take men working fulltime earning a figure and women working half those hours and earning half that figure and claim that this proves women are paid less than men!
Regardless of the motivation any gender quota legislation, ultimately elevates someone artificially and at the expense of someone else…
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