May Day marches ended up with crowds getting into a dispute with the police in a number of west coast cities late Friday and officers had to respond with stun grenades and pepper spray to control the situation.
Protesters flung wrenches and rocks at officers in Seattle and protestors in Oakland and California along with other several more cities rallied to make a stand against the killings of black man by the police.
In Seattle protestors were seen smashing shop windows with people scattering away as police threw “flashbang” grenades to make them stop. Two dozen vehicles have also been damaged and fire set on garbage by some of them, according to the police.
Seattle Police Captain Chris Fowler stated that, “This is no longer demonstration management; this has turned into a riot.”
Seattle police department tweeted that at least 3 officers had been injured with 2 of them much more seriously and a minimum of 16 had been arrested because of the mess.
Several people were taken into custody as more than 100 of windows of restaurants, businesses and banks had been smashed, with one vehicle been burned while several others damaged at a local car dealership lot.
Pepper spray and flashbangs has also been used in Portland after some protesters threw objects at officers and tried to force their way onto a bridge leaving one officer injured, tweeted the city police department.
Annual assembly on May 1 is common for protestors to raise voices against labor and immigration issues but this time around demonstrators used this occasion to bring up racial death issues on the plate as well.
A majority of the rallies proceeded without any major chaos. Even the Baltimore rally had been a peaceful and celebratory one after prosecutors brought charges against the 6 officers involved in the case Freddie Gray’s death under police custody.