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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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Looks like a better use of a wall might be to protect them!
Every time you put fish or any other type of meat on your plate, you are enabling the extinction of creatures like this. You can make up all the excuses in the world for yourself but it doesn’t change this reality. So if you are a meat eater then you should not be outraged by this article because you are death, the destroyer of worlds.
@Pounamustone: Vegetarians go against evolution. Look at your teeth. They’re designed to cut through meat and veg. If we weren’t omnivores, we’d have teeth like cows.
P.s My food shits on your food.
@David: Like I said there are plenty of excuses but they don’t change the reality.
/9-reasons-your-canine-teeth-dont-make-you-a-meat-eater/
@Pounamustone: You will never know the pleasure of a bank holiday Monday morning bacon sandwich mmmmmm
@Soccer T’s: with a hape of brown sauce
@Pounamustone:
I don’t eat much red meat myself but your post is sadly ridiculous. WE are omnivores.Some of us eat meat as part of our diet.
Between five and ten per cent of our animals are carnivores. The Human Being is part, (albeit sometimes a destructive part) of bio diversity
Just because meat is not part of your diet, you are not entitled to be so sanctimonious.
@Pounamustone: meat is murder!!! Tasty, delicious, nutritious murder.
@Pounamustone: utter rubbish.
@Ger Healy: it’s a long time since humans were part of bio diversity. There’s nothing natural about factory farming and us killing over 50 billion land animals per annum. To me what is ridiculous is you trying to justify your part in the destruction of the planet. We’ve evolved so that we no longer have to eat meat so we simply shouldn’t. I don’t mind being sanctimonious about that.
http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
@Soccer T’s: I had some bacon and scrambled egg this morning, yum yum yum.
China again. China will end up killing humans.
I think I know a guy who’s interested in walling in Mexicans!
have your say