2nd day of Ferguson protests in SD
About 100 people marched on city streets, chanting protests
Demonstrators gathered Wednesday evening in City Heights for the second night in a row, marching in another protest against a grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer in the fatal shooting of a Missouri teenager.
About 6 p.m., about 100 people began walking north on Fairmount Avenue, then west on University Avenue and later on El Cajon Boulevard. They chanted “no justice, no peace,” and “hands up, don’t shoot.”
San Diego police officers in five patrol cars followed about a half-block behind, with a dozen motorcycle officers behind them. The march ended about 10:30 p.m. in the same area where it began.
View the photo gallery: Second Night of Demonstrations
A larger protest twice shut down a section of Interstate 15 in City Heights Tuesday night when marchers swarmed onto the freeway, and bottles and rocks were later thrown at several officers, police said.
On Wednesday night, patrol cars briefly blocked ramps to both Interstate 15 and Interstate 805 in the Mid-City area.
Earlier Wednesday, a group of demonstrators, some of them UC San Diego students, briefly blocked the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Nobel Drive in La Jolla during the morning commute.
About 6:50 a.m., about 40 people lined up across the freeway. Demonstrators said they also were protesting the grand jury decision not to file criminal charges against white police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death in August in Ferguson, Mo., of black teenager Michael Brown.
Some motorists got out of their vehicles and angrily confronted the demonstrators, who started putting orange cones across freeway lanes.
CHP officers in about two dozen patrol cars arrived and ordered the protesters to leave.
About 25 San Diego police officers helped clear the freeway of protesters, who left without incident once unlawful assembly was declared, said police Capt. Jerry Hara.
CHP Officer Jake Sanchez said departing protesters walked up the ramp to Nobel Drive, headed toward UC San Diego and dispersed. No one was arrested or issued citations, he said.
Since the freeway was under the CHP’s jurisdiction, it was that agency’s decision whether to ticket or cite the protesters, Hara said.
On Tuesday night in City Heights, several San Diego police officers were struck by rocks and full water bottles and suffered minor injuries, and one officer was spit on, police Acting Capt. Keith Lucas said. In addition, a California Highway Patrol officer was struck with a rock and spit on, he said.
Six protesters were arrested, one for throwing rocks at officers, one for inciting the crowd and leading them onto the freeway, and four for unlawful assembly, Lucas said.
