Baltimore Lifts Curfew, National Guard Begins Pullout

Baltimore's mayor on Sunday lifted a curfew that was imposed across the East Coast city following widespread riots, as thousands of National Guard troops began withdrawing from the scarred metropolis.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake had faced growing calls for the curfew to be scrapped, particularly from store and restaurant owners who said the 10:00 pm to 5:00 am nightly restriction was wrecking business.

"My goal has always been to not have the curfew in place a single day longer than was necessary," Rawlings-Blake wrote on Twitter on Sunday morning. "I believe we have reached that point today."

Authorities imposed the curfew April 28 after protests over the death of a man who sustained fatal injuries while in police custody turned violent. The curb on nighttime activity was initially supposed to remain in place until May 4.

Baltimore took the unusual step of a citywide curfew after rioters torched cars, pelted police with stones and ransacked stores on April 27. The riots stemmed from protests over the death of Freddie Gray, 25, who suffered a serious spinal injury while in the back of a police van on April 12.

He died a week later. 

To help prevent repeat violence, authorities sent about 3,000 Maryland National Guard troops into Baltimore.

Soon after the curfew ended, Governor Larry Hogan held a brief press conference and said the troops had already started to leave the city.

"The trucks are pulling out this morning. It's going to take a little bit of a while," Hogan said. 

"It's not going to happen instantaneously. It's going to take a couple of days to get everybody out. We had to build an entire city to save the city."

Hogan called for "healing" and prayer in Baltimore and spoke of the financial ramifications of the riots and curfew.

"It's going to be devastating," he said. "Monday night we lost 200 businesses. Most of them were minority-owned businesses. Many of them didn't have insurance. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost."

On Friday, prosecutors said Gray should never even have been arrested and had committed no crime. Six Baltimore police officers, three white and three black, were charged with multiple counts including second-degree murder and manslaughter in connection with the death.

Baltimore's police union has condemned what it calls "an egregious rush to judgement," as it defended the officers and expressed confidence they would be cleared.

- Growing roster of deaths - 

Gray's case is the latest in a growing roster of high-profile deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police, and has rekindled national debate and simmering tensions about whether police are too hasty to use deadly violence when dealing with African American or minority suspects.

Perhaps the most famous case is that of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old who was fatally shot in Ferguson, Missouri. The death and subsequent lack of legal action against the police officer who shot him prompted widespread riots in the St Louis suburb.

Similarly, the death of father-of-six Eric Garner, 43, sparked broad protests. Garner died after being held in a police chokehold while being arrested for illegally selling cigarettes in New York.

Many residents in Baltimore, a port city of 620,000 people, reacted jubilantly to news of the six officers being charged, and demonstrations since the April 27 riots were generally peaceful. 

Thousands took to the streets again Saturday and another rally was planned for 3:00 pm (1900 GMT) Sunday.

Many residents and business owners grew outraged over the curfew, with an online petition calling for its end drawing more than 2,000 signatures, and local politicians saying it had gone on long enough. 

"My sincere hope is that all of us may resume our focus on Baltimore city being the place we live, work, and play, as soon as humanly possible," Councilman Eric Costello said on Saturday. "In order to do so, several things must happen, and the most important is lifting the curfew."

Bar owner Ron Furman told the Baltimore Sun that his business had lost tens of thousands of dollars, with sales down an estimated 95 percent. 

"It's devastating for us," Furman told the newspaper. "We're talking about an impact that's going to be felt throughout the entire year."