It took place days after 37-year-old Alton Sterling was shot dead in Baton Rouge, while being held down by two white police officers on Tuesday morning.
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Police in riot gear prevented a group of protesters in Baton Rouge from entering a major artery, Interstate 110, thwarting a tactic which social justice activists have increasingly attempted in some major cities in protest over the deaths. Police said early on Sunday they had begun clearing the highway of debris in preparation for re-opening it. Three officers came through. Officers were hit with rocks, bottles, concrete, construction materials and fireworks, police said. “I guess they didn’t like it because they detained me”, Haynes said Evans told her.
All of those who were arrested have been charged with obstruction of the roadway.
Evans joined the protest against the police killings of black men after the shooting death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. “They were ignored”, said Baton Rouge Police Sgt. Don Coppola.
“It absolutely is on our radar”, Yolanda Smith, executive director of the NAACP Houston branch, said Sunday about Braziel’s shooting. “We also want the police to be able to do their job, to protect and to serve us”.
President Obama also returned to the White House after cutting a trip to Europe short following the deadly attack.
The Daily Callers New Foundation tried reaching out to the Baton Rouge Police Department but they did not answer the call.
The Governor also said that he was pleased with how the vast majority of protesters let their voices be heard without resorting to violence.
The day after his release from jail, prominent Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson on Monday said mounting criticism against the movement from the political right is an effort to deflect attention from the need for meaningful reform on police accountability.
“The job is to protect us while we are out here trying to protest for our rights”.
New Orleans residents accounted for almost half of the people who were arrested at protests that started Sunday in Baton Rouge.
In a press conference Sunday, law enforcement officials defended their actions by saying that other streets had been completely closed down for the marches, but say Mckesson was on Airline highway, a major thoroughfare that needed to stay open to traffic. “I’m very proud of that”.
During their walk a police officer appears to tell him that he’s been “flagged” for walking down a highway.
Police have increased security in cities across the country, and in a sign of the tense situation that continues in Dallas, police placed their headquarters on alert Saturday, while they searched for a suspicious person in a nearby parking garage.
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On Sunday, Amnesty International questioned the high number of arrests during Saturday’s protests and whether it was a “proportionate response to peaceful protests”.
