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 The protests were the latest actions against racial profiling and
police use of lethal force sparked by the deaths of African-American
men in Cleveland; Ferguson, Missouri; New York and elsewhere in the
past year.
New York City police arrested more than 60 people as protesters
roved in separate groups through Manhattan, blocking traffic in a
few areas. Smaller protests occurred in Boston, Houston, Ferguson,
Missouri, Washington, D.C., Seattle and a handful of demonstrators
were arrested in Denver.
In Baltimore, 3,000 National Guard troops and police stood by to
enforce a 10 p.m. curfew as thousands of peaceful marchers converged
on city hall. The march capped a day of calm in a city that two days
earlier saw its worst rioting in decades.
Protesters in the mostly black city of Baltimore sought answers
about the fate of Freddie Gray, 25, who died after suffering spinal
injuries while in police custody. Police are due on Friday to give
their findings on Gray's death to prosecutors but said no
information will be made public.
"Can't stop, won't stop, put killer cops in cell blocks," chanted
protesters in the biggest march in Baltimore since Gray died on
April 19, a week after his arrest and injury.
 Nineteen buildings and dozens of cars burned, stores were looted and
20 officers were hurt in Baltimore on Monday in a spasm of violence
hours after Gray's funeral.
"This is for everyone who died wrongly at the hands of police," said
Noy Brown-Frisby, a 35-year-old hairstylist who attended Wednesday's
march with her young daughter.
But she recognized that high crime in the city of 620,000 people
complicates relations with the police.
"There is so much tension. The crime is so high that when there is
interaction between police and the community it becomes volatile,"
she said.
In New York City, police on scooters used batons to try to keep
protesters on sidewalks and arrested people who moved into traffic.
The demonstrations from Union Square to Times Square and elsewhere,
were reminiscent of similar demonstrations in December after a grand
jury decided against charges in the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed
black man who died after a police officer put him in a chokehold.
NO REPORT ON FRIDAY
Many Baltimore citizens were hoping to find out the details of
Gray's death on Friday when police have said they would conclude
their investigation.
"The best (outcome) would be one where the officers were disciplined
and officials realized what happened and owned up to their
wrongdoing," said Larry Little, 22, a Baltimore resident who joined
the march on Wednesday.
Gray was arrested on April 12 after fleeing from police in a
high-crime area. He was carrying a switchblade knife. He died a week
later.
But police said on Wednesday that information would be turned over
to the state attorney's office and could not be made public because
prosecutors still have to decide whether to bring charges.
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The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a separate probe into
possible civil rights violations in Gray's death.
The Washington Post reported that a prisoner who was in the same van
as Gray, but who could not see him, heard him banging against the
walls and believed he was intentionally trying to injure himself.
The newspaper cited a police document.
"SENSELESS ACTS"
With police and National Guard troops patrolling Baltimore's streets
on Wednesday, schools reopened and business resumed.
Baltimore's Major League Baseball team, the Orioles, played the
Chicago White Sox in an empty stadium, a sign of the tenuous
security situation.
Police have arrested close to 270 people since Monday, 18 of them on
Wednesday. Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said more than 100
people had been released without being charged, because officials
could not keep up with the paperwork, but he said charges would be
brought later.
The violence in Baltimore prompted national figures - from the new
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to Democratic presidential
hopeful Hillary Clinton - to weigh in and vow to work on improving
law enforcement and criminal justice in minority communities
nationwide.
Lynch, sworn in as attorney general on Monday, called Baltimore's
riots "senseless acts of violence" that are counterproductive to the
ultimate goal of "developing a respectful conversation within the
Baltimore community and across the nation about the way our law
enforcement officers interact" with residents.
The Baltimore neighborhood that saw the worst of the violence was
already filled with many burned-out buildings and vacant lots that
had not been rebuilt since the 1968 riots that followed the
assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
(Additional reporting by Sascha Brodsky in New York and Dan Whitcomb
in Los Angeles; Writing by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Grant McCool,
Lisa Shumaker and Ken Wills)
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