Highway 24, BART Stations, Amtrak Shut Down As Protesters March Through Oakland & Berkeley For 4th Night
BERKELEY (CBS SF) -- Protesters marched through Berkeley for a fourth night in a row in the latest demonstration over the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown during confrontations with police. The protesters ended up in Oakland and prompted a closure of Highway 24.
The protest started around 6:20 p.m. when police said about 100 people were marching through the University of California at Berkeley's South Campus area.
About an hour later, the group was at Center Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, near Civic Center Park, police said. Protesters gathered at City Hall, where Tuesday night's city council meeting was postponed.
Afterwards, the protesters marched through Berkeley and into Oakland. The Downtown Berkeley BART station was closed around 7:10 p.m. due to the protest, but reopened later in the evening.
Shortly after 9 p.m., BART officials closed the MacArthur station due to the protests. MacArthur station reopened around 10:00 p.m.
Amtrak suspended service at three of its East Bay stations due to protest activity. The stations resumed service around 10:30 p.m.
A group of 150 protesters marched past police lines onto Westbound Highway 24 at 47th Street in Oakland just after 9:15 p.m. as about 200 protesters marched below the freeway.
The group eventually exited the freeway, continuing their march on side streets parallel to the highway.
At 9:30, the California Highway Patrol reported that officers were being hit with rocks and bottles.
Authorities said 13 people were arrested Tuesday night.
Around 10:30 p.m. the protesters made their way to Oakland City Hall, where a city council meeting was taking place.
Tuesday's protest was the latest decrying the decisions of grand juries who did not indict police officers in the deaths of Garner and Brown. On Nov. 24, a grand jury's decision was announced to not indict then-Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Last Wednesday, New York City police Officer Daniel Pantaleo was not charged in the chokehold death of 43-year-old Eric Garner in Staten Island.
On Monday night, protesters shut down I-80 in both directions, and blocked Amtrak tracks in West Berkeley.
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