by Our Foreign Desk

MARYLAND Governor Larry Hogan announced yesterday that he is moving his office on a temporary basis from the state capital Annapolis to the riot-hit city of Baltimore where a state of emergency has been declared.

Disturbances erupted in the city on Monday, hours after the funeral of 25-year-old African-American Freddie Gray, who died of a spinal injury days after being taken into police custody.

The governor sent a large number of National Guard troops to impose order and they took up positions in the city to prevent any repetition of violence and looting.

The Maryland Transit Administration said that its underground trains would not stop at several stations and the transport austhority also closed at least one bus station because of police activity in areas of the city.

State schools were closed for the day and several neighbouring districts said that they would cancel any scheduled field trips to Baltimore.
A citywide curfew took effect last night from 10pm to 5am.

The Baltimore mayor’s office said that there had been 144 vehicle fires, 15 buildings set ablaze and nearly 200 arrests during the unrest.

Fredericka Gray, the twin sister of Freddie Gray, called for an end to the violence, which she called “wrong,” adding that she believed her brother would also have disapproved.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said that at least 15 officers had been injured in the street disturbances, six of them seriously.

As National Guard troops fanned out across the city, shield-bearing police officers blocked the streets and firefighters doused smouldering blazes early yesterday morning, as a growing area of the city shuddered from riots following the funeral of a black man who died in police custody.

The violence that started in west Baltimore on Monday afternoon spread to the east of the city and areas close to the centre.

It was the most volatile outbreak of violence prompted by the death of a black man in police custody since the angry protests in response to the shooting dead of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer.