National Guard troops fanned out through the city, shield-bearing police
officers blocked the streets and firefighters doused still-simmering
blazes early Tuesday as a growing area of Baltimore shuddered from riots
following the funeral of a black man who died in police custody.The violence that started in West Baltimore on Monday afternoon — within
a mile of where Freddie Gray was arrested and placed into a police van
earlier this month — had by midnight spread to East Baltimore and
neighborhoods close to downtown and near the baseball stadium.
It was one of the most volatile
outbreaks of violence prompted by a police-involved death since the days
of protests that followed the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black
man who was shot and killed during a confrontation with a white police
officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer.
At
least 15 officers were hurt, including six who remained hospitalized
late Monday, police said. Two dozen people were arrested.
State and local authorities
pledged to restore order and calm to Baltimore, but quickly found
themselves responding to questions about whether their initial responses
had been adequate.
Baltimore
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was asked why she waited hours to ask the
governor to declare a state of emergency, while the governor himself
hinted she should have come to him earlier.
"We were all in the command
center in the second floor of the State House in constant communication,
and we were trying to get in touch with the mayor for quite some time,"
Gov. Larry Hogan told a Monday evening news conference. "She finally
made that call, and we immediately took action."
Asked
if the mayor should have called for help sooner, however, 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."
Rawlings-Blake said officials
believed they had gotten the unrest that had erupted over the weekend
under control "and I think it would have been inappropriate to bring in
the National Guard when we had it under control."
But
later on, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts made it clear
events had become unmanageable. "They just outnumbered us and outflanked
us," Batts said. "We needed to have more resources out there."
Batts said authorities had had a "very trying and disappointing day."
Source: Yahoo News
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