Photo: courtesy of NBCNEWS
By: David Purdue, Source Metro
Nationwide protests over the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown shooting case are mostly over this morning. In Ferguson, Missouri, police reported some gunshots, and protesters set a police car on fire. However, officials said the second night of protests in Missouri were generally less violent and certainly caused less property damage. More than 40 arrests were made in the Ferguson area yesterday, but most were for minor charges.
The most chaotic protests took place in California yesterday. In Los Angeles, protesters closed down a portion of the 101 Freeway, backing up traffic for miles. There were also clashes with police outside of the LAPD’s downtown headquarters, and protesters also shut down an intersection of Cesar Chavez Boulevard at one point. Police in L.A. arrested around 100 people over the course of the protests, which lasted until around 2 a.m. Pacific.
Violence also gripped protests in Oakland, California. Hundreds of protesters became violent and destructive, setting numerous fires in dumpsters on city streets. At one point, a line of fire stretched across Telegraph Avenue. Businesses were attacked, looted and damaged, and several cars were vandalized at a Mercedes car dealership. Earlier in the evening the protesters blocked traffic on Interstate 980, then made their way to Interstate 580 a few hours later where they blocked police from coming onto the freeway.
Protests in much of the rest of the country were peaceful. Though there were some reports of arrests, thousands of people protested in New York City without the looting and vandalism that happened in other places. Several separate groups caused gridlock on major highways and bridges on the east and west sides of the city, and in Times Square. More than a thousand protesters disrupted traffic in Boston, but were prevented from moving onto Interstate 93 by a line of police.
Even smaller cities saw hundreds of protesters marching and chanting Tuesday. Places such as Austin, Texas and Asheville, North Carolina were the site of protests and calls for change in the way police treat African-American crime suspects. The nationwide protests came the day after a grand jury in Missouri decided that Officer Darren Wilson would not face charges in the August shooting death of Michael Brown.
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