Protests against the shootings of two black men by police officers shut down main arteries in a number of US cities on Saturday, leading to numerous arrests, but remained mostly peaceful, except for scuffles with riot police in Baton Rouge.
Undeterred by heightened concerns about safety at protests after a lone gunman killed five police officers in Dallas Thursday night, organizers went ahead with marches in the biggest metropolis, New York City, and Washington DC, the nation’s capital, among other cities.
It was the third straight day of widespread protests after the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, by police in Baton Rouge on Tuesday and the death of Philando Castile, 32, on Wednesday night in a St Paul, Minnesota suburb.
The most recent shooting deaths by police come after several years of contentious killings by law enforcement officers, including that of Michael Brown, a teenager whose death in the summer of 2014 caused riots and weeks of protests in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson.
Early on Saturday evening, hundreds of protesters shut down I-94, a major thoroughfare linking the Twin Cities, snarling traffic for about two hours.
Despite warnings to disperse, St Paul police said protesters threw objects, injuring one officer. The police then began making arrests and used smoke bombs to scatter the crowd.
A march in Baton Rouge saw scuffles between riot police and Black Panther activists, several of whom carried shotguns, as Louisiana law allows for weapons to be carried openly. A police spokesman said several arrests were made and two weapons recovered during the confrontation.
After a short standoff later in the evening, riot police made multiple arrests.
Protests also took place Saturday in Nashville, where protesters briefly blocked a road, and in Indianapolis.
A rally in San Francisco also briefly blocked a freeway ramp, according to local media.
Hundreds of protesters marched from City Hall to Union Square in New York. The crowd swelled to around a thousand people, closing down Fifth Avenue.
Some in the crowd chanted ‘No racist police, no justice, no peace’ as rain fell in New York.
‘I’m feeling very haunted, very sad,’ said Lorena Ambrosio, 27, a Peruvian American and freelance artist, ‘and just angry that black bodies just keep piling and piling up.’
New York police said separately they arrested about a dozen protesters for shutting down a major city highway.
Source: New Age
