SEATTLE/OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters)
- Crowds clashed with police during May Day marches in several U.S.
west coast cities late on Friday, as officers responded with stun
grenades and pepper spray, police and media said.
Anti-capitalist protesters hurled wrenches and rocks at officers in
Seattle, police said. Demonstrators in Oakland, California, and several
other cities, rallied against a series of police killings of unarmed
black, local media reported.
Footage on social media showed protesters smashing shop
windows in Seattle and crowds scattering as police clad in riot gear
threw in "flashbang" grenades. Demonstrators set fire to garbage and
damaged at least two dozen vehicles, police said.
"This is no longer demonstration management, this has
turned into a riot," Seattle Police Captain Chris Fowler said in a
statement.
At
least three officers were injured, two seriously, and at least 16 people
were arrested, Seattle's police department said on its Twitter account.
Several
hundred protesters snaked through the streets of Oakland for hours on
Friday night after a day of peaceful protests.
More than
100 windows at businesses, restaurants and banks along the route were
smashed, and several people were taken into custody overnight. At least
one vehicle was burned and others damaged on the lot of a local car
dealership.
Oakland police did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Pepper spray and flashbangs were also used in Portland
after some protesters threw objects at officers and tried to force their
way onto a bridge, the city police department said on its Twitter
account. One officer was injured, it said.
Protesters annually assemble on May 1 as a day to focus
attention on labor and immigration issues. Demonstrators in cities
across the country also used the occasion to rally against police
violence.
Many rallies proceeded largely without major incident.
In Baltimore, demonstrations were peaceful and even
celebratory after prosecutors brought charges against all six officers
involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man who
died of spinal injuries suffered while in police custody earlier this
month.
Gray's
death has become the latest flashpoint in a national outcry over
excessive force used against African-Americans and other minority groups
by the white-dominated U.S. law enforcement establishment. It set off
riots in Baltimore on Monday.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, Victoria
Cavaliere in Seattle, and Emmett Berg and Noah Berger in Oakland,
California; Editing by Paul Tait and Sim
