- Title: USA-POLICE/BALTIMORE-NATIONAL GUARD National Guard is deployed in Baltimore
- Date: 28th April 2015
- Summary: BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES (APRIL 28, 2015) (REUTERS) NATIONAL GUARD SOLDIERS STANDING GUARD ALONG ROAD NATIONAL GUARD SOLDIERS AROUND CITY POLICEMEN ON STREET VARIOUS OF NATIONAL GUARD SOLDIERS AROUND CITY
- Embargoed: 13th May 2015 13:00
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- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVACLIX6R678QJJTIIBD2UFP1O0P
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The National Guard was deployed in Baltimore on Tuesday (April 28) at the request of the city to deal with violence after Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency.
Baltimore residents began cleaning up the wreckage from rioting and fires that erupted after the funeral of a 25-year-old black man who died after suffering a spinal injury in police custody.
Acrid smoke hung over streets where fire crews raced to contain damage from violence that broke out just blocks from the funeral of Freddie Gray and spread through much of the poor West Baltimore neighborhood. Fifteen buildings and 144 vehicles were set on fire, and nearly 200 people were arrested, according to the city mayor's office.
Police said 15 officers were injured, six seriously, in Monday's unrest.
Looters had ransacked stores, pharmacies and a shopping mall and clashed with police in riot gear in the most violent unrest in the United States since Ferguson, Missouri, was torn by gunshots and arson in late 2014.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican imposed a one-week curfew in the largely black city starting Tuesday night, with exceptions for work and medical emergencies.
On Monday, rioters threw rocks at police, smashed car windows and twice slashed a fire hose while firefighters fought a blaze.
Gray was arrested on April 12 while running from officers. He was transported to the police station in a van, with no seat restraint and suffered the spinal injury that led to his death a week later. A lawyer for Gray's family says his spine was 80 percent severed at the neck while in custody.
Six officers have been suspended, and the U.S. Justice Department is investigating possible civil rights violations.
Much of Monday's rioting occurred in a neighborhood where more than a third of families live in poverty. Parts of it had not been rebuilt since the 1968 rioting that swept across the United States after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Deadly confrontations between mostly white U.S. police and black men, and the subsequent unrest, will be among the challenges facing U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who was sworn in on Monday and condemned the "senseless acts of violence."
Baltimore's race riots were the latest of many in the United States. In 1992, more than 50 people in Los Angeles were killed in violence set off by the acquittal of four police officers who beat black motorist Rodney King. Dozens died in 1968 riots, including several people in Baltimore. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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