Young people began hurling bricks and bottles at police in riot gear soon after Gray was buried in the afternoon. Shops in the Mondawmin mall were looted and police cars were set on fire and smashed – one while an officer remained seated inside.
“This is not protesting, this is not your first amendment rights, this is just criminal activity,” said police commissioner Anthony Batts, declaring he was “supremely disappointed in what’s happened in our beautiful city”.
Repeatedly condemning the rioters as “thugs”, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said a city-wide curfew between 10pm and 5am would be imposed for a week beginning on Tuesday night.
Baltimore’s authorities announced that the public school system would be closed on Tuesday, leaving more than 80,000 students without classes to attend amid an atmosphere of seething discontentment with police and the city administration.
Struggling to keep up with events, Mayor Rawlings-Blake said at her own press conference: “I am at a loss for words … It is idiotic to think that by destroying your city you’re going to make life better for anybody.”
Police had put the city on alert earlier on Monday after claiming to have intelligence of a violent threat. Batts explained late in the evening police understood the Bloods, Crips and Black Guerilla Family gangs had met and each pledged to kill a police officer.
However the unrest appeared instead to have been sparked by a younger crowd of high school students left milling around the neighborhood near the site of Gray’s funeral by the cancellation of public transport.
“They thought it was cute to throw cinder blocks at police,” said Batts.
The rioting on Monday night followed scattered vandalism and looting after peaceful protests on Saturday.
Gray’s case is the latest flashpoint for demonstrators who accuse American police of killing young black men without justification. Cellphone video footage showed him being dragged into the police van while yelling in pain. One of his legs appeared limp. However police have indicated his neck was broken after this point, while declining to provide details.
Police chiefs admitted officers failed to provide Gray with medical attention despite his requests and failed to seatbelt him in the van. Past prisoners in Baltimore have described “rough rides” in which police vehicles are seemingly deliberately driven erratically to injure passengers.
Gray travelled with his hands cuffed behind his back and his legs in restraints. A second man was collected by the van during the journey. The man, whose name has not been released, is said to have given police an account of what he saw inside the vehicle.
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful, said in a tweet she was “praying for peace and safety” for all in Baltimore. Clinton described Gray’s death as “a tragedy that demands answers”.
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