国际英语新闻:Police in Baltimore Enforcing Overnight Curfew

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND—An overnight curfew took effect late Tuesday in Baltimore after what police called an  "overwhelmingly peaceful" day following riots over the death of a young black man in police custody.

Scores of protesters remained at one protest location immediately after the curfew went into effect, where a skittish but peaceful crowd has been gathered most of the day.  Some in the crowd began throwing objects at riot police in the area but as the night went on most of the protesters had left.

Civilians had been imploring journalists at the scene and the remaining protesters "please go home."
Through the day, city residents of all races came out to clean up, pick up and shed tears for burned-out stores and a looted shopping mall that included a supermarket and a top-name department store — essential services for one of the city's poorest neighborhoods

As the sun set Tuesday, streets that had been filled with rioters 24 hours earlier were instead filled with music, dancing and people hugging.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake spent much of day visiting neighborhoods. She said she saw a lot of what Baltimore is about — people reclaiming and healing the city.

Some residents brought food and water to the police officers patrolling their streets. In the afternoon, outside a CVS pharmacy that looters had set ablaze Monday night, protesters sporadically clashed with police before civilians linked arms to form two parallel chains between the two groups.

Michael Coleman, a neighborhood resident, brought his two young children out to the rally. He said that while this month's death of the 25-year-old black man in police custody triggered the protests, the problem runs much wider than allegations of police brutality.

"This is more about power: economic power, social power," Coleman said.

"This is not a Baltimore thing or a race thing.... Race plays a part [in] it, but it's not the big picture."

Also Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama said there was "no excuse" for Monday night's violence in this eastern U.S. city, and the state's governor called in the National Guard and 2,000 volunteers "to maintain order and to repair the damage and violence from looting last night."

Riots had erupted in pockets of the city after Monday's funeral for Freddie Gray, who was arrested April 12, suffered spinal cord injuries and died a week later while still in police custody.

Distraction from 'legitimate concerns'

Obama said what happened Monday in Baltimore "distracted" from the multiple days of peaceful protests that were focused on what he described as "entirely legitimate concerns" over Gray's death.

"There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday," Obama said from the White House, making his first public statement about the Baltimore case. "It is counterproductive."

He added, "It's a handful of people taking advantage of a situation for their own purposes," and said they should be treated like criminals.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan vowed Baltimore will not have "another repeat" of Monday night.

"It's not going to happen tonight," the governor told reporters Tuesday, saying he had temporarily relocated the state's capital to this city. He deployed the National Guard and mobilized more than 2,000 volunteers to help maintain calm and "begin the long process of restoring our community."

"We're going to make sure we get Baltimore back on track," Hogan said.

Monday's violence began as hundreds of high school students marched toward a local mall after classes were dismissed for the day, then spread out across several neighborhoods, overwhelming the police department's ability to respond as the protests turned violent.

Community policing

Obama acknowledged a "slow-rolling crisis" in community policing, saying there have been too many troubling police interactions with criminal suspects of color.

"We have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals – primarily African-American, often poor – in ways that raise troubling questions," the president said at a White House press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"I think there are police departments that have to do some soul-searching. I think there's some communities that have to do some soul-searching. I think we as a country have to do some soul-searching," he added.

"This is not new. It's been going on for decades," Obama added, referring to tensions in U.S. communities over police actions.

Obama described problems many communities struggle with equal opportunity, poverty, drugs, limited education, single parenting and lack of male figures at home. Too many people expect to "send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems," he said.

He said solving them would require greater investment in police training, as well as early education and criminal justice reform.