Arrests made as protests spread to NY,DC

Baltimore woman slaps rioting son, hailed as `mom of the year’
“I can’t imagine what Freddie Gray’s mother is going through. I don’t want to lose my son to the streets,“
The person who is grabbing headlines is a black `supermom’ who publicly smacked her 16-year old son for taking part in the riots. Toya Graham, a single mother of six children was caught on camera berating and clobbering her son Michael, and chasing him home after she spotted him carrying rocks to hurl at the police in an angry demonstration. “That’s my only son and at the end of the day, I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray,“ Graham told the media even as she was celebrated as #MomOfTheYear on social media and beyond. “I can’t imagine what Freddie Gray’s mother is going through. I don’t want to lose my son to the streets,“ she added. “Is he a perfect boy? No he’s not. But he’s mine.“

The protests surrounding the death of another black man while in police custody that led to days of unrest in and around Baltimore has now spread to New York.
Several hundred people have gathered at Union Square in Manhattan to protest the death of Freddie Gray, a Baltimore man who was critically injured in police custody. Freddie Gray ran from officers on bicycles at Baltimore’s Gilmor Homes on April 12 near where he lived. He surrendered without a struggle when officers caught up with him, police said.His arrest was recorded on a cell phone video, which showed him limp as he was dragged into a police van.Gray died a week later, the latest black man to be fatally injured while under arrest.

The protesters chanted “no justice, no peace” and “hands up, don’t shoot” Thursday night as dozens of New York police officers watched.A police helicopter hovered overhead and a police loudspeaker warned the protesters that they would be arrested if they marched in the street.Organizers had urged various activist groups to rally at Union Square “to show the people of Baltimore that we stand in solidarity with them and with their resistance because their resistance is for justice and their justice is our justice,” according to one press release. More than a dozen protesters were arrested after they marched onto the street. Police with batons had to push the crowd back onto the sidewalk.
In Washington DC protesters chanted, “All DC cops out of Baltimore.”
Anthony Demond Newsome, 27, of Baltimore, who was released on Monday, said there were too many people in the holding cell he was in – so there was no comfortable way to sleep. “We had to use our shoes for pillows,” he said.