NPRRaucous demonstrations hit Berkeley’s streets for a second straight night as protesters angered by police killings in Missouri and New York clashed with officers, vandalized businesses and even fought with each other, officials said.
Sunday’s protest began peacefully on the University of California, Berkeley, campus but eventually grew rowdy and spilled into Oakland. Activists made their way onto a freeway and blocked traffic.
The California Highway Patrol said officers fired tear gas after protesters targeted them with rocks and bottles and tried to light a patrol vehicle on fire. Police also said explosives were thrown at officers, but there was no information immediately available on how potent they were.
Officers chased protesters off the roadway. The highway patrol said it made arrests but no figures were available.
The demonstrations were the latest of several in the Bay Area — including in Oakland where activism is strong — to protest recent grand jury decisions in Missouri and New York not to indict while police officers in the deaths of two black men.
As hundreds of protesters began marching through downtown Berkeley, the unrest that marked protests Saturday night was touched off again as someone smashed the window of a Radio Shack. When a protester tried to stop growing vandalism, he was hit with a hammer, Officer Jennifer Coats said.
A medic helps a demonstrator who tried to stop looting at the Radio Shack on Shattuck.#berkeleyprotests pic.twitter.com/Fkz3am8HSh
— Sergio Quintana (@svqjournalist) December 8, 2014
Police said groups of protesters late Sunday began roaming through the downtown area, throwing trash cans into streets and lighting garbage on fire, smashing windows on buildings, and damaging and looting businesses. There also were reports of vandalism at City Hall.
Television footage showed protesters smashing door windows and breaking into buildings and setting rubbish piles ablaze.
Coats said police were making arrests and had made some arrests earlier in the evening, but no further details were available.
A police officer clashes with a protester Sunday in Berkeley, Calif., during a demonstration about recent grand jury decisions in police-involved deaths.
Stephen Lam/Getty Images
There was no immediate word of any serious injuries. During the protests a day earlier, three police officers and a technician were hurt and six people were arrested when the protest turned unruly.
Meanwhile, seven people were arrested in Seattle Saturday night after protesters threw rocks at police and attempted to block a highway. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have been calling for calm while activists push for police reforms. NAACP president Cornell William Brooks, appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” called for outfitting police with body-worn cameras and changing law enforcement policy.
“We have to change the model of policing,” Brooks said.
Ohio’s Republican governor said the unrest underscores the need for political leaders to be inclusive and to unite, not divide.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich said on ABC’s “This Week” that a “significant percentage” of the country believes the system’s not working for them and can be working against them.
“They need to be listened to and they need to be responded to,” Kasich said. “In our country today, there’s too much division, too much polarization — black, white; rich, poor; Democrat, Republican. America does best when we’re united.”
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/08/369281534/peaceful-protest-turns-chaotic-in-californias-east-bay
BULLSH*T, these are government agent provocateurs. They’re always masked, never arrested, never identified. The “news” calls them “out of towners”. They’re used to discredit protests. Then the “news” focuses on the “looters” and they also get shills to call radio talk shows and point out the “looting and violence”.
“Ohio Gov. John Kasich said on ABC’s ‘This Week’ that a ‘significant percentage’ of the country believes the system’s not working for them and can be working against them.”
wow…..What gave Einstein that brilliant idea? If a noose were thrown around his neck, he might imagine that there’s a constitution somewhere that he should have been paying attention to once in a while.