Baltimore’s police commissioner said late Tuesday night that there had been “no major events” since the 10 p.m. curfew took effect and police and National Guard took to the streets in force.
“The curfew is working,” said Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, adding shortly before midnight that there had been just 10 total arrests.
Hundreds of demonstrators initially defied the curfew past the 10 p.m. deadline to be off the streets, most prominently at the corner of Pennsylvania and North avenues.
But they began dispersing when lines of police moved in. About 20 minutes after the deadline, the Baltimore Police Department began throwing smoke devices after having banged their shields on the ground as a warning.
According to CNN, pepper pellets were fired into the crowd but no tear gas or rubber bullets were used, as happened in Ferguson, Missouri. Community activists that the network interviewed uniformly praised the Baltimore PD for its restraint.
A handful of demonstrators at Pennsylvania and North already had thrown rocks, bottles and other missiles at the police line and yelled obscenities at the cops. But they mostly dispersed after the police began firing back.
Several major junctions were blocked off by police, assisted by National Guard units and military-style jeeps.
The Baltimore Police Department said it had announced via helicopter that 10 p.m. was approaching. The governor had announced earlier in the day that the curfew would be enforced.
A line of self-appointed peacekeepers spent much of the early part of the evening between the police and the demonstrators, trying to admonish folks to go home.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland Democrat, was on the streets right at 10 p.m. urging the demonstrators to “leave without any kind of problems with the police.”
“All right folks, we gotta get outta here,” he said, as he ended a CNN interview.
The Rev. Jamal Bryant, who delivered the eulogy for Freddie Gray, called it “regrettable” that people were “deliberately” putting themselves in the line of fire. He called it his “earnest prayer” that everything remain peaceful.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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