Berkeley Protests Turn Violent For Second Straight Night
BERKELEY (CBS SF) -- Berkeley police are reporting that the protest Sunday night and earlier Monday morning over the failure of a New York grand jury to indict a white officer in the death of an unarmed black man has ended.
Police officers made five arrests for various charges, said spokeswoman and Berkeley police Officer Jennifer Coats. The California Highway Patrol reported eight arrests.
One of the protesters arrested is allegedly responsible for the damage to Trader's Joes that occurred in Saturday night's protests. Police said the protester used his skateboard to do the damage to the grocery store.
Police said they arrested another person for throwing a heavy object that injured an officer in Saturday's protests. Both were arrested for those individual offenses as well as alleged offenses during the demonstrations Sunday night through Monday morning.
Police did not say what those offenses are. Two officers suffered minor, non-life threatening injuries Sunday night, police said.
A protester was injured when he was assaulted with a hammer as he tried to stop other protesters from looting a Radio Shack on Shattuck Avenue.
The injured protester was taken to the hospital with injuries that were not considered life threatening, according to the police.
Demonstrators smashed windows and looted stores, mainly along Shattuck Avenue and Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, police said. The City of Berkeley's Department of Public Works is helping businesses affected by Sunday night's protests board up their windows to secure their property.
A man in his pajamas stepped outside to protect his property.
Meanwhile, protesters dressed in black were carried tires, presumably to burn.
Berkeley Protests Turn Violent For Second Straight Night
UC Berkeley student Manpreet Harrideo told KCBS that he joined the protest but was caught in the middle of violence just before midnight.
"I saw someone take a bottle, they were trying to aim for a cop and they threw the bottle and hit
a student's head and it was blood," he said. "It's not even about the two people anymore. It's just people just trying to go chaotic; they're just going crazy now and it's insane."
Several dozen protesters were able to make their way past officers in riot gear and to get onto Highway 24 shutting it down for a time until they were arrested. Two CHP officers were injured in that incident.
Some of the demonstrators broke into and looted the Whole Foods Market on Telegraph Avenue and later passed around bottles of stolen champagne.
Protests in the Bay Area have been frequent during the past week, and have occurred in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and other locations.
Burglar alarms could still be heard ringing through the streets that were strewn with broken glass and graffiti-marked buildings early Monday morning.
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