Police and civilians today, in California, the United States of America, clashed over a spate of recent killings, by the police, of young African American suspects. The civilians, in the confusion that ensued, were believed to have looted shops and hurled objects at police and injured several officers.
Some of the civilian protesters were said to have launched canisters of smoke and tear gas back at police, while others could be seen smashing store windows with skateboards.
Police spokeswoman, Jennifer Coats said: “several splinter groups broke off and began hurling bricks, pipe, smoke grenades, and other missiles at officers. Numerous officers were struck, and one officer was struck with a large sandbag and treated at a local hospital for a dislocated shoulder.”
Several buildings were damaged, including a bank and grocery store, while numerous civilian and police cars were also vandalized.
Coats said that police in Berkeley used tear gas against the crowd as some demonstrators smashed store windows and looted shops, but said that the number of arrests and injuries was not known.
One of the demontrators who would not give her name asked: “why are you people looting? There’s no need, we’re peacefully protesting you shouldn’t be taking stuff from stores that aren’t bothering us.”
Thousands of demonstrators gathered across the United States yesterday for a fourth consecutive night to condemn a grand jury decision not to charge the white officer in the July 17 chokehold death of black father of six Eric Garner in New York.
Protests were largely peaceful from New York, where “die-ins” were staged as people lay down in Grand Central Station to Washington, where several roads and a central bridge were closed.
Civil rights activist Al Sharpton’s National Action Network held an event in Harlem attended by actor Spike Lee, and in Chicago, NBA star Derrick Rose warmed up for a game in a T-shirt bearing the words “I Can’t Breathe.”
Those were the final words gasped by 43-year-old Garner, whom police wrestled to the ground in New York’s Staten Island for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes.
The decision not to indict the officer comes after another grand jury in the St Louis suburb Ferguson also decided not to indict a white officer who shot dead Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.
That decision also sparked angry protests in the largely black suburb of Ferguson, which has a mostly white police force.
And last month, a 12-year-old African American boy brandishing a toy gun was shot dead by police only seconds after they arrived at the scene.
The deaths have sparked outrage across the country, as well as a national debate on race relations and police tactics. [myad]
On this picture, is it in America. Wow. The famous Berkley California ? America you should stop killing people and pray that there is no natural disaster, because everytime your country is exposed the world is shocked by the poverty that thrives in America.
The police? What police? That of the whites? Justice, what justice, that of the whites and powerful? Why more than 50% of prisonners in the USA are black? Why a vast majority of blacks remain poor in the US?
A racist society, violent? Unfortunately, yes. Except at MIT and Harvard, and God knows it is just a façade. America is a RACIST country. Stop the killing of blacks and if you cannot stop, we’ll make you stop.