Washington - Baltimore streets were largely calm Thursday as an emergency curfew set in for a third night, following hours of protests over the death of an African-American man who died while in police custody.
Protests had broken out in Baltimore and spread to Philadelphia earlier in day over the death of Freddie Gray, as fresh claims emerged as to how he sustained fatal injuries while detained by police.
But as a 10 pm curfew began in Baltimore, officers formed a cordon and engaged in a brief but mostly non-violent confrontation with a handful of protesters.
Afterwards, the streets were largely vacated and only police and journalists remained.
Baltimore has taken center stage in the latest bout of protests in the United States over alleged police brutality and racism against blacks, mainly young men.
The demonstrations there echo protests that erupted in a St Louis suburb last year when a white policeman shot dead an unarmed black teenager, and then flared again in major US cities when a grand jury declined to indict the officer.
On Thursday around 600 people marched in Baltimore, a city of 620,000 an hour's drive from Washington that has witnessed some of its worst unrest in decades.
But there was no immediate return to the scenes that made worldwide headlines on Monday when violence and looting shook Baltimore following Gray's funeral.
Meanwhile Philadelphia also saw protesters demanding justice for Gray and an end to what demonstrators said is overly aggressive policing, particularly in confronting black Americans.
About 600 people gathered in the "City of Brotherly Love," police said, in what was a mostly peaceful march. But a hardcore element briefly clashed with officers when they attempted to take the rally onto a freeway.
Dozens of protesters jostled with police, and there were two arrests, CNN said from the scene. But as night fell, it reported that only around 100 demonstrators remained.
On Wednesday thousands of demonstrators hit the streets in Baltimore, New York -- where police made 143 arrests -- Washington and Boston.
Gray died with 80 percent of his spine severed at the neck, lawyers for his family say, portraying him as just the latest young African American to die at the hands of the police in the United States.
AFP
