BALTIMORE – Protests continued in Baltimore and elsewhere Wednesday as the riot-torn city reopened schools and lurched toward normality, while residents waited to learn how a young black man's spine was severed while in police custody.
More than 1,000 peaceful marchers streamed from Pennsylvania Station to City Hall to protest the death of Freddie Gray, 25, who died April 19, a week after his arrest. Officials have confirmed that he died of a severed spine, and his family says his voice box was crushed and his neck snapped.
Also Wednesday, the Baltimore Orioles played a surreal baseball game in an empty stadium that had been closed for security reasons. Games on Monday and Tuesday were postponed until May while the city seethed over Gray's death.
Protesters also marched Wednesday in New York, where a peaceful but boisterous crowd chanted, "All night, all day, we will fight for Freddie Gray" and "Fight back." One demonstrator carried a placard that read, "New York stands with Baltimore."
By evening, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said, 18 people had been arrested, but he was not sure what the causes were.
Thousands of police and National Guard troops monitored the streets before the 10 p.m. curfew took effect.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra gave a free concert outside Baltimore's Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, about 1 ½ miles from the worst of the riot-scarred areas, to support the ravaged community.
In the lively waterfront neighborhood of Fells Point, many bar owners were boarding up windows even while staying open to serve those willing to come in the daytime. Owners were bracing for violence despite officials' successful efforts Tuesday night to avoid the looting and arson that broke out on Monday, hours after Gray's funeral.
