Baltimore abandons curfew after repeated civil disobediance arrests
On Sunday, the 3ed of May, Baltimore's Mayor announced she was giving up on the 10PM curfew and lifting it effective immediately. Also, the National Guard and out of jurisdiction cops are now supposed to be "drawn down." Since Tuesday, April 28 the curfew had been directly responsible for provoking civil disobediance protests, arrests, and fighting that at least once escalated to "rubber" bullets. The last two nights of the curfew featured civil disobediance arrests of mostly white allies near City Hall and police assaults on African-American curfew protesters elsewhere
The civil disobediance protests by City Hall had the effect of reducing the number of cops available to patrol the rest of the city for people defying the same curfew. Activist media and photographers managed to defy the curfew and escape with the pictures and reports. On Friday night ALL the media passes had been revoked, so all media coverage of the Friday night actions after 10PM had to come from curfew resistors. Cops tied up downtown were probably a good part of why I did not see a single cop in West Baltimore along Route 40 as I rode out of town on Friday night-not even one. Unfortunately, the racism of Baltmore police was again on display Saturday night during curfew protests. Deray Mckesson reports that African-American curfew protesters were beaten and one left on a stretcher. Meanwhile white protesters were begged to leave before being engaged by cops.
On Saturday. May 2, bars lost huge sums of money because the curfew forced them to cancel planned viewings for a historic boxing match.The baseball stadium has been closed for a week. The curfew could not have been sustained long without causing tax revenue to plummet from catastrophic business losses. The Washington Post reported that Baltimore residents were "chafing" under the curfew. The 24 hour curfew for "minors" had been a complete failure, with essentially unchanged and unchallenged youth participation in the daytime protests.
For the past week Baltimore has been a city under military and police occupation. This is the first time I've ever seen Amnesty International have to deploy to protest, not to protest but to observe. There were reports that police helicopters with spotlights were roaming the city after dark hunting people who defied the curfew. The history of military occupations in other countries is that this sort of thing does not take long to touch off an insurgency. It began in Iraq after peaceful protesters were shot at by US troops. That protest occurred after a US helicopter accidently blew a flag off the minaret of a mosque. How long would it have taken for something like this to happen in Occupied Baltimore?
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/05/03/baltimore-latest-mayor-lifts-c...
Cops fire pepper spray at peaceful African-American anti-curfew protesters Saturday night. Photo by Harris from the Post
The last arrests at the anti-curfew CD on Saturday night: Photo by Harris from the Post
