News Digest

May Day demonstrators clash with police in Pacific Northwest

Demonstrators clashed with police in two cities in the Pacific Northwest Friday after earlier May Day marches in support of more rights for workers and immigrants and an end to police brutality. In Seattle, police said black-clad marchers threw wrenches, sticks and rocks at officers in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood Friday evening, injuring three officers, two of them seriously. Police responded with pepper spray and pepper balls and arrested a half dozen people. Several dozen vehicles were damaged, police said.

This is no longer demonstration management, this has turned into a riot.

Capt. Chris Fowler, who was overseeing police response to May Day activities in the city

Police there temporarily closed a major bridge over the Willamette River during the height of the evening commute and pepper sprayed some demonstrators when a May Day march deviated from its permitted route through downtown. Police said one officer was assaulted and was taken to a precinct for medical treatment. Marches held in cities from Minneapolis to Oakland, California, drew crowds ranging from a few dozens to hundreds of people, but they were largely peaceful. In Denver, two dozen protesters railed against economic inequality, while about 1,000 marched in New York at an event that also decried police abuse in the wake of the in-custody death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.