“All we want is just a little bit of respect, our demands met, to hear from he people in positions of power, the mayor and the police commissioner”, the man said in footage posted by @BaltimoreBloc.
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Despite rancor surrounding his appointment, Davis, who has publicly advocated a more conciliatory “community” approach to policing, tried to strike a warmer tone, after being voted in.
Davis says the arrests were “the last thing we wanted to do”.
Protesters initially gathered inside City Hall Wednesday evening.
She also yelled to other protesters that if she died in police custody it was not suicide. This is most troubling to community organizations and members as we exercise our First Amendment right to hold elected and appointed officials accountable for their actions.
After the vote, dozens of protesters remained at City Hall. “As a direct result of their failure to comply, the remaining protesters have been arrested and charged with trespassing”, a police statement added. The spike followed unrest and rioting in April after Gray’s death. The council must vote, possibly as early as Monday.
Yahoo! News reports at least 25 officers converged on the scene before dawn Thursday, frantically loading protesters demanding better overall policing into transport vehicles and taking off. Several of those being escorted away could be seen in plastic handcuffs, their hands behind their backs.
Among them is provision of safe spaces for protest, a ban on militarized policing, other than in extreme circumstances, and a requirement for officers to wear identifying badges at all times.
Kwame Rose, an organizer who had been with the group for hours, also left with several others before police moved in. His leadership and policing practices have been characterized as disrespectful and inequitable by activists. The activists are opposing moves to permanently appoint Davis to the post. At least 30 protesters were still there after midnight and most did not disperse until after 3 a.m., according to the Baltimore Sunday.
Police did not elaborate on the number of people arrested or their identities. “All [Davis] had to do was come upstairs for ten minutes”.
But their main concern was their lack of input in the police chief decision as the department faces a federal probe into allegations of excessive force, and remains at the centre of the debate over how poor, black men are treated by the officers and public officials tasked with protecting them.
Members of the Baltimore Uprising coalition began shouting from the upper gallery of a conference room Wednesday night as a city council subcommittee voted to make Kevin Davis the permanent commissioner.
Ralikh Hayes told an Associated Press reporter over the telephone Wednesday night that the protesters number 32 altogether and that they “have no access to bathrooms, food or water now”. The protesters also sent social media messages asking their supporters to show up at 8 a.m. Thursday.
“They’ve chosen not to meet with protesters, not address their demands, but instead chose to arrest them under the cloak of darkness”, Grandpre said.
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Davis was made interim commissioner in July after predecessor Anthony Batts was sacked amid a spike in violent crime in Baltimore.
