Baltimore schools reopen as racial tensions tamped down

Police and protesters clash in Baltimore riot

Baltimore schools reopened on Wednesday as a sense of calm returned to the eastern US port city that on Monday witnessed its worst riots since the days after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968.

Police arrested a handful of protesters on Tuesday for breaking a 10pm curfew that was imposed following the riots. African American youths took to the Baltimore streets on Monday - throwing projectiles at police and torching cars and buildings - following the funeral of Freddie Gray, a young black man who died last week after suffering unexplained spinal injuries while in police custody.

The events have rekindled a debate about the treatment of minorities, particularly African Americans, at the hands of the police. In Baltimore, it has also sparked a discussion about the number of black men imprisoned for minor violations or what critics say are "nonsense" crimes such as loitering in areas where drug gangs operate.

In a speech on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said the events in Baltimore should "tear at our soul" and that it was "time to end the era of mass incarceration". President Barack Obama on Tuesday addressed the tensions in Baltimore and across the nation with a warning about a "slow-rolling crisis" over the police treatment of African Americans.

The issue of race and policing is likely to emerge as a theme in the 2016 presidential election. Mrs Clinton painted the issue in broad terms, saying the consequences of imprisoning so many was "profound" because of the economic implications. "Without the mass incarceration that we currently practice, millions fewer people would be living in property," she said at Columbia University.

Eric Holder, who just stepped down as attorney-general last week, made criminal justice reform one of his top priorities, including reducing mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug offences. Mr Holder, the first African American to hold the top law enforcement job in the US, called it a civil rights issue, noting that mandatory minimum sentences disproportionately affect black men compared to white men.

Over the past year, federal prosecutors have sought the mandatory minimum penalty in one out of every two drug trafficking cases, marking the lowest rate recorded by the US Sentencing Commission, the government agency that sets sentencing guidelines. Previously, the minimum penalty was sought in two out of three such cases.

Mr Obama also sent Mr Holder to Ferguson, Missouri in the aftermath of the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer that sparked months of tensions. While the officer was not charged, the justice department issued a scathing report accusing the Ferguson police department of discriminating against blacks partly to generate revenue for the city. The department is conducting an independent civil rights investigation into the death of Gray in Baltimore, while an initial report on a reform review of the Baltimore Police Department will be issued in a few weeks.

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Police on Tuesday night said the curfew, which will remain in effect from 10pm to 5am for the rest of the week, was succeeding in tamping down tensions. On Wednesday morning, traffic was flowing along one section of Sandtown that was blocked by riot police for much of Tuesday as police and military helicopters flew overhead.

The riots have spurred recriminations between officials in Baltimore, a Democratic city in the state of Maryland, which has a new Republican governor. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake dismissed criticism that she was slow to call in national guard troops on Monday as the riots escalated, saying that the experience of other parts of the US such as Ferguson showed the negative consequence of too heavy a police presence. She did not respond to suggestions from Larry Hogan, the governor, that she was slow to respond to his phone calls asking whether she wanted national guard troops - a move that ultimately happened on Monday evening.

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