Anger over a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict the police officer who shot Michael Brown to death continued to reverberate around the country Tuesday, with protests and demonstrations from coast to coast.
A melee broke out after protesters shut down a San Francisco highway, a car plowed through a crowd in Minneapolis and marchers in New York City caused a 12-block backup at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.
In New York City, about 250 protesters again gathered in the famed Union Square and began marching up Broadway on Tuesday evening, holding signs reading “We will not be silent” and “A badge is not a license to kill,” NBC New York reported.
Several major streets, highways and bridges were gridlocked late into the night throughout the night as protesters marched from Union Square north to Times Square, then back downtown toward the Manhattan Bridge.
Ramps to the Massachusetts Avenue Connector in Boston were closed Tuesday night as state police tried to keep an estimated 1,400 protesters from marching onto the highway. State police told NBC News it was possible some in the crowd were trying to reach the South Bay House of Correction.
And protesters in Philadelphia held more demonstrations Tuesday, with rallies taking place at the Byrne Federal Courthouse along Independence Mall and at City Hall, NBC reported. Police estimated that 500 took part in the protests at their height.
Police were in a standoff with protesters in Portland, Oregon, when about 200 of them broke off from a peaceful demonstration and tried to cross a bridge on foot, NBC station KGW reported. Traffic was blocked at a major downtown intersection, and the bridge was closed about 7:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m. ET).
In Washington, D.C., one group staged a “die-in” in front of police headquarters to symbolize Brown’s death in the streets of Ferguson.
“We did the ‘die-in’ for 4½ minutes to represent the 4½ hours they let Michael Brown lay in the street dead, unattended,” protest organizer Angie Brilliance told NBC Washington.
At least 40 people were arrested in a melee that escalated after some protesters shut down traffic on a major highway in the San Francisco Bay Area on Tuesday, while in Oakland people were still cleaning up after more than 1,000 people took part in a march that turned destructive.
In Southern California, police lined South L.A. freeway ramps to prevent protesters from entering the highway as a second day of rallies began. About 200 to 250 protesters forced the closing of Martin Luther King and Crewnshaw boulevards Tuesday afternoon after lying down in the middle of the intersection, NBC Los Angeles reported.
