Ferguson protests in San Diego, across U.S.
Several hundred demonstrators took to San Diego streets Tuesday night to protest the decision not to indict the Ferguson, Mo., police officer who shot an unarmed black man to death.
A crowd of about 50 outside the federal courthouse downtown grew to about 250 and marched up the street to the nearby county courthouse.
A half hour later, several hundred people marched from the at City Heights Performance Annex on Fairmount Avenue to the nearby police station.
View the photo gallery: Locals protest Ferguson decision
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There were no reports of arrests or violence at either protest.
Earlier in the day, about 100 San Diego State University students held a noontime demonstration in the center of the campus Tuesday in response to the grand jury report.
Students marched in a circle, held signs and chanted “Hands up, don’t shoot” as part of the demonstration, which lasted about 50 minutes.
Lauren Jackson, a third year psychology student, said the Afrikan (CQ) Student Union sent out an e-mail Monday night telling people about the demonstration, but did not organize it.
Jackson said the grand jury report was hard for her and other students to accept.
“I thought it would happen, but I had hoped for something else,” she said. “I’m always hopeful for justice.”
During the demonstration, Jackson led the crowd in chanting, “”Protect and serve, that’s a lie; They don’t care when black kids die.”
Following the demonstration, she and other students said they planned to attend the demonstration in downtown San Diego later that day.
People protesting the Ferguson, Missouri, grand jury decision took to the streets in other cities across the U.S. Tuesday, showing that the racially charged case has inflamed tensions even hundreds of miles from the predominantly black St. Louis suburb.
Peaceful demonstrators marched in Seattle and disrupted traffic in St. Louis and Cleveland. Rallies also formed in New Jersey, Maine, Maryland and elsewhere.
For many, the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson recalled other troubling encounters with law enforcement. The refrain "hands up, don't shoot" became a rallying cry over police killings nationwide.
A look at some of Tuesday's other demonstrations:
ST. LOUIS
Protesters disrupted downtown traffic for several hours by blocking major intersections, an interstate highway and a Mississippi River bridge connecting the city to Illinois.
Riot police arrested several demonstrators who sat in the middle of Interstate 44 near the Edward Jones Dome. They used pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
Demonstrators also swarmed the steps of the federal courthouse, overturning barricades while chanting, "You didn't indict. We shall fight."
SEATTLE
Hundreds of Seattle high school students walked out of classes and rallied at the University of Washington or marched to the downtown federal courthouse.
The protest came a day after demonstrators threw canned food, bottles and rocks, and police responded with pepper spray and flash-bang grenades. Five people were arrested.
MINNEAPOLIS
A rally in Minneapolis turned scary when a car struck a protester and then burst through a pack of others who surrounded it. A woman suffered minor injuries.
Several hundred people had gathered Tuesday afternoon near the 3rd Precinct police outpost to show solidarity with Brown. The driver called police soon after to report the incident, and police spokesman John Elder said the incident was under investigation.
About 200 protesters gathered on the state Capitol steps in St. Paul and marched without incident.
Los Angeles, Oakland
In Los Angeles, a few hundred protesters took to the streets, engaging police in a standoff at a freeway off-ramp and surrounding a Highway Patrol car in a tense scene in South Los Angeles.
To the north in Oakland, protests were expected to resume a day after 43 people were arrested in a melee that escalated after some protesters shut down traffic on a major highway, police Chief Sean Whent said.
He said three officers were injured, including one who suffered a cut to the head after being hit by a brick.
"We will not tolerate assaults on our staff or vandalism and destruction," he said.
CLEVELAND
Several hundred people marched down a freeway ramp to block rush-hour traffic while protesting the Missouri developments and Saturday's fatal shooting by an officer of 12-year-old Tamir Rice of Cleveland, who had a pellet gun that looked like a real firearm.
"The system wasn't made to protect us," said one of the protesters, 17-year-old Naesha Pierce. "To get justice, the people themselves have to be justice."
NEW YORK
Hundreds of people marched for a second night in Manhattan, gathering in Union Square before splitting up into several smaller groups, chanting "No justice, No peace." Some held signs saying "Jail killer cops" and "Justice for Mike Brown."
Protests have so far been large but mostly peaceful, with just two arrests, including that of a man who threw a jar of fake blood that struck Police Commissioner William Bratton.
Several hundred protesters also marched peacefully through nearby Newark, New Jersey.
ELSEWHERE
In Chicago, protesters who had hoped to spend the night inside City Hall left after most of the day when they were threatened with arrest.
Several hundred people from historically black schools Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University in Georgia also held peaceful demonstrations.
In Portland, Oregon, a rally drew about 1,000 people who listened to speeches then marched through downtown. A splinter group kept going, but police later blocked them from leaving.