WASHINGTON, D.C.
Protesters again returned to Baltimore on Wednesday with more than 1,000 demonstrators demanding an end to police brutality.
The protestors consisting largely of college and high school students gathered just before 6 p.m. in front of Pennsylvania Station and marched on City Hall to protest the death of unarmed black man Freddie Gray.
Gray died from severe spinal injuries while in police custody - a week after he was arrested.
"Tell the truth. Stop the lies. Freddie Gray didn't have to die," protesters chanted as they made their way through downtown Baltimore. As they walked, they carried signs reading, “Don’t shot and don’t loot,” “I don’t mourn broken windows, I mourn broken necks,” and “Black youth are not thugs.”
The White House on Wednesday defended President Barack Obama’s use of the word ‘thugs’ to describe looters and rioters despite criticism from some who said that the use of the word carries undue racial overtones.
“Whether it's arson or, you know, the looting of a liquor store, those were thuggish acts,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
Wednesday’s march was carried out without incident, and more than 100 protesters then gathered at the site of a drug store that was looted and set ablaze during Monday night’s melee.
Schools reopened Wednesday after being closed Tuesday when a week-long 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. curfew went into effect. The widespread unrest that beleaguered the city Monday was not repeated with the curfew in place Tuesday, and which continued Wednesday.
Roughly 2,000 National Guardsmen and 1,000 police have remained in the city to enforce the curfew.
Maryland State Attorney Marilyn Mosby is expected to receive the results of an investigation into Gray’s death on Friday, and will then decide whether or not to charge six officers involved in Gray’s arrest.
Her decision could potentially set the stage for further unrest should she decline to bring charges.
Hundreds march in Washington DC for Freddie Gray
Protesters shutdown the U.S. capital downtown Wednesday night as thousands marched to the White House chanting slogans for Freddie Gray, an African-American man who recently died in Baltimore police custody.
The group, mainly comprising youth from different ethnic backgrounds, first gathered at China Town, and walked down to the White House.
The Black Muslim Community in the U.S., famously known as the Nation of Islam led the group, along with Ferguson D.C. movement.
Protesters made sure that participants were safe and the march remained peaceful.
Police stayed away from the protesters and only made sure the traffic in the city kept moving.
Meanwhile, only an hour away from Washington, in Baltimore, hundreds of people were arrested since Monday as local authorities there declared a state of emergency and announced a curfew for Tuesday from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
The protesters in Washington showed solidarity with Baltimore protesters, chanting "they say get back, we say fight back."
After nearly more than two hours of marching, protesters stopped in front of the White House, where they continued chanting "Black Lives Matter" and "Baltimore to D.C., we will not stop until we are free."
President Barack Obama lashed out the protesters in Baltimore and described them as a distraction from the scores of protesters who took to city streets.
"Media is showing us as criminals," said one of the protesters, speaking to the crowd, "they are focusing on broken windows, instead of broken bones," he added.
Mainstream media in the U.S. focused mostly on the rioting, which broke out after the funeral of Freddie Gray Monday.
Hundreds rally in NY in support of Baltimore protesters
Several hundred demonstrators rallied Wednesday in New York in solidarity with others protesting the death of a black man who apparently sustained injuries wile in police custody in Baltimore.
Protesters gathered in Manhattan's Union Square at 6 p.m. (GMT2300) and split into multiple groups marching in different directions.
Cries of "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice, No Peace" rang out as one group marched to Times Square, about 2 miles north of Union Square.
The slogans have become rallying cries for protesters following a series of high-profile police-involved killings of unarmed blacks in Missouri, New York and Ohio.
Another group of protesters managed to block the West Side Highway along the Hudson River for a brief period.
Dozens of demonstrators were reportedly arrested during the night, although the New York protests were largely peaceful compared with two days of clashes between demonstrators and police in Baltimore following the Monday funeral for Freddie Gray, a black man who died from a severed spine while in police custody a week after his on April 12 arrest.
The city’s mayor instituted a week-long curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Gray's arrest was recorded on cell phone video that showed the 25-year-old with his hands behind his back, screaming as police lifted him to his feet and dragged him into a transport van. He died at a hospital on April 19.
His death comes on the heels of a string of recent police-involved killings of black suspects across the country, including deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri, Eric Garner in New York and Walter Scott in South Carolina, among others.
The incidents have stirred racial tensions, setting off nationwide protests over perceived injustices within the U.S. justice system.
Baltimore police have suspended with pay six officers pending an investigation.
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