Seattle police said protesters used Molotov cocktails and threw rocks, flares and bricks at the police with one police officer saying he was bitten by a protester.
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Police deployed blast balls – small firework-like devices that give off a loud bang and a dose of pepper – amid reports of assaults on officers and broken windows. Details on the other two injuries were not immediately available but Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole said there were no serious injuries.
Earlier in the day, large throngs of immigrants and workers peacefully marched across the city.
Officers in riot gear blocked the marchers- after only a block- protesters really didn’t have them any choice but to stop right here so right now we are pinned in.
But after 5 p.m., several hundred protesters gathered in Seattle’s financial district for a second un-permitted march, carrying signs including a banner that read “We Are Ungovernable”.
Later in the evening an anti-capitalist march was slated to begin in a downtown park.
Seattle police said officers were directed to put on eye protection after protesters were reportedly seen putting something into spray bottles. Police arrested 10 people in 2015, 13 people in 2014 and 18 people in 2013, during similar demonstrations, said the AP. Storefronts in downtown Seattle have also been smashed in previous protests.
Police officers carry non-lethal weapons during anti-capitalist protests following in Seattle.
On the other side of the Atlantic, hundreds of thousands of workers, teachers and farmers across Latin America turned out on Sunday to demand better welfare and working conditions.
Wilske had called the earlier march through downtown for workers and immigrants “very successful”.
Meanwhile, social justice advocates in Durham, New Hampshire, made the rejection of racism, xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment the themes of their annual rally.
Trade unions and workers staged rallies across the world on Sunday to mark the International Workers’ Day.
They chanted things like “No justice, no peace”, according to KIRO-TV. Another event was planned across the bay in Oakland.
A Donald Trump pinata has been paraded around Los Angeles as marchers took to the streets on May Day.
The Republican front-runner for the 2016 presidential nomination was at the center of numerous protests with demonstrators calling for an end to his stated plan to deport as many as 11 million immigrants and build a wall along the Mexican border if he is elected as President Obama’s successor.
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Immigrants, union members, workers and activists participated in the rally.
