Black Lives Matter DeRay McKesson spewing racism after the massacre of at least five Dallas Police.
Prominent Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson has been released from jail after being arrested during a protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Saturday night, according to officials.
A booking record from the East Baton Rouge Sheriff"s Office confirms that Mckesson was arrested. He was being held at the East Baton Rouge Parish jail, according to records.
And The Associated Press reported that Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman Cpl L"Jean McKneely told The Advocate newspaper that Mckesson was arrested Saturday night.
The booking record for Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson, booked on Baton Rouge, Louisiana on July 10, 2016.
Mckesson was filming video of the protest and walking alongside Airline Highway when he was arrested. According to Mckesson, he was charged with obstruction of a roadway.
Upon his release, Mckesson said Baton Rouge Police were provoking peaceful protesters. He was among hundreds of individuals protesting against the shooting death Tuesday by police of 37-year-old Alton Sterling.
Mckesson said he remains hopeful that the Justice Department will intervene both investigation into the death of Alton Sterling and the way police treat protesters.
Mckesson gained a national following after he left his then-home of Minneapolis in August 2014 for Ferguson, Missouri, to document the the police shooting of Michael Brown.
ABC News" Devin Villacis contributed to this report.
A prominent Black Lives Matter activist, three journalists and more than 120 other people were taken into custody in Louisiana over the weekend, authorities said Sunday, in connection with protests over the fatalshootingof an African-American man by two white police officers in Baton Rouge.
Spokeswoman Casey Rayborn Hicks of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff"s Office told The Associated Press that nearly 100 people were taken to the parish jail over protests that began late Saturday. Most of those arrested were from Louisiana and faced a single charge of obstructing a highway.
A first wave of arrests took place on Friday and early Saturday, with 30 people taken into custody.
Police began releasing those who were arrested on Sunday afternoon. Kira Marrero, 21, of New Orleans, who faces a charge of obstructing a highway, was the first to leave the jail. She says she was not standing on the road.
"I did the right thing," said Marrero, a 2015 graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts. "I have no doubt in my mind that I did nothing wrong."
Tensions between black citizens and police have risen palpably over the past week or so amid policeshootingsof African-American men in Minnesota and Louisiana and the gunning down of five white police officers by a black suspect inDallasin apparent retaliation.
Among those arrested was DeRay Mckesson, a leading figure in the Black Lives Matter movement that blossomed in recent years in the wake of numerous deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police. Mckesson smiled and embraced supporters upon his release from jail Sunday afternoon.
"I remain disappointed in the Baton Rouge police, who continue to provoke protesters for peacefully protesting. There"s a lot of work to be done, with this police department specifically," he said.
Authorities had just arrested a couple on a motorcycle driving by on the street when attention turned toward Mckesson, who had traveled from Baltimore for the protest and happened to be wearing bright red shoes. An officer could be seen pointing to a man and heard saying that he"d arrest the man with "loud shoes" if he could reach him.
Booking documents provided by the East Baton Rouge Sheriff"s Office said Mckesson was arrested on a charge of obstructing a highway.
An affidavit of probable cause filed by police says Mckesson "intentionally" placed himself in the road after protesters were repeatedly warned via police loud speaker to remain on private property or the curb.
"During the protest, the defendant entered the roadway and was provided another verbal order to exit the lanes of travel. Moments later, the defendant entered the roadway again and was taken into custody by officers on scene without incident," the affidavit said.
Activist Brittany Packett, who was with Mckesson, said in an email that he was on the highway shoulder when "multiple police crossed onto the shoulder, tackling Deray and arresting him."
Photo images taken by The Associated Press show police apprehending Mckesson, who at one point was on his knees before being pulled to his feet by police and led away with his hands secured behind his back.
Baton Rouge police blamed violence and out-of-town agitators for the large number of arrests, noting that an earlier march the same evening was peaceful and nobody was arrested.
One police officer lost teeth to a projectile thrown from the protest Saturday night outside police headquarters, and police also confiscated three rifles, three shotguns and two pistols during that protest, Sgt. Don Coppola, a police spokesman, said in an emailed statement.
"It appears the protest at Baton Rouge Police Headquarters have become more violent as out of town protesters are arriving," he wrote.
The list released by the sheriff"s office included two homeless people and 18 from out of state, including Mckesson. The vast majority of the Louisiana residents were from the Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas.
It was not clear just what police blamed on "out of town protesters." Only one person from outside the Baton Rouge area faced a charge other than obstructing a highway.
Three people two from Baton Rouge and one from Humble, Texas face a charge of inciting to riot, and four all from the Baton Rouge area face a charge of resisting arrest.
Darren Bowers, 26, of Baton Rouge, arrived at the jail around 9 a.m. Sunday to see if he could get his girlfriend, 26-year-old Ariel Bates, released. Bowers wasn"t present when Bates was arrested near police headquarters. Bowers said she called him from the jail early Sunday.
"She told me that they jumped all on her and her cousin on the grass. They weren"t on the street or anything," Bowers said.
He said he believes police are "antagonizing" protesters.
"People are peacefully protesting. Why are (police) in riot gear?" he said.
The tumult over police killings reached well beyond Louisiana. In Minnesota, police arrested about 100 people in the capital of St. Paul during protests. Authorities said 21 St. Paul officers and six state troopers were hurt late Saturday and early Sunday during clashes stemming from the policeshootingand killing of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black man, during a traffic stop in suburban St. Paul on Wednesday.
The starting point of Saturday"s demonstration was the convenience store where 37-year-old Alton Sterling was shot and killed last week. Protesters then fanned out to the Baton Rouge police department and the state Capitol.
The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Sterling"s death.
Shouting "No justice! No peace!" roughly 1,000 protesters gathered outside the police department, waving homemade signs as passing cars honked their support.
Police in riot gear came out numerous times as the demonstration wore on into the evening, facing off against the crowd that yelled slogans and waved signs.
Authorities said they pulled in officers from nearby parishes to buttress their numbers.
WAFB-TV reporter Chris Slaughter was among those arrested, Hicks confirmed. Eve Troeoh, news director for New Orleans public radio station WWNO, said staff reporter Ryan Kailath was arrested.
Breitbart News reported that Lee Stranahan, one of its reporters, was arrested.
Members of the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense called for the arrest and indictment of the officers involved in Sterling"sshooting, shouting "Black Power" and raising their fists.
"These are human rights violations," Krystal Muhammad shouted to the crowd at the convenience store before heading over to the police department. "They are not operating as human beings. They are being predators on our communities across America."
In Minnesota, police used smoke bombs to clear more than 200 people blocking Interstate 94, the main highway in and out of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Protesters pelted police in riot gear with rocks, bottles, firecrackers and other objects, and they refused to get off the highway, prompting officers in riot gear to move in just after midnight.
Roughly half of the arrests happened during that standoff. Most of the others happened early Sunday in another part of St. Paul.
Police Chief Todd Axtell called the violence against officers "a disgrace."
Mike Martin, who wore a guitar on his back and said he was trying to promote peace, was pepper sprayed by an officer on a pedestrian bridge overlooking the interstate. He said he was trying to move the crowd along and keep the peace.
"I guess I wasn"t moving fast enough for him," said Martin, who said the officer was six feet away when he sprayed him without warning. "He just got it out and bam, I saw a cloud. It"s burning pretty bad."
A leader on a loudspeaker urged the group to march to the governor"s mansion, where protesters have been gathering since the fatal police shooting Wednesday of a black driver, Philando Castile, in the suburb of Falcon Heights. The 32-year-old school cafeteria supervisor told officers during a traffic stop that he had a gun in the car and a permit to use it, and one of them shot him when he reached for his wallet, according to his girlfriend, who live-streamed video of the immediate aftermath on Facebook.
Tyree Johnson, a protester who said he was Castile"s cousin, said officers on the highway fired pellets and gas in his direction.
Misty Macon, 20, of St. Paul, said the protest was mostly peaceful, though at least one protester aimed a firework at an officer. She said she saw about 30 people being peacefully taken away by officers, who said they warned protesters they would be subject to arrest if they didn"t leave the interstate, which reopened early Sunday.
The protest was among several demonstrations nationwide, including New York.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched through the streets of New York on Saturday in a third night of protests against shootings of black men by police officers.
The protesters marched up Broadway from lower Manhattan, paused for speeches in Union Square, then marched to Times Square and around midtown.
As many as 1,000 people joined the protest, but many left when it started raining late Saturday night.
Police officers marched alongside the protesters and tried to keep them on the sidewalk by playing a recorded announcement warning them that they risked arrest if they stayed in the street. A police spokesman said there were at least 20 arrests.
Zayanahla Vines, a nephew of Delrawn Small, who was shot to death by an off-duty officer in Brooklyn during a road-rage incident Monday, choked back tears before kicking off the march.
"My uncle was killed in cold blood by somebody who was wearing a badge, and that man"s still walking free today," Vines said.
He added, "This is about black people in America, this is not about me. This is not about any of us as an individual."
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that he will investigate the death of Small, who was black, as were the men fatally shot by police officers in Baton Rouge and a suburb of Minneapolis.
Protester Cynthia Howell said she wants to see accountability for police misconduct.
"We are not against the police, but we want accountability and we want justice," said Howell, a niece of Alberta Spruill, who died of a heart attack in 2003 after police threw a concussion grenade into her Harlem apartment during a mistaken raid. "We want those who do reckless, dangerous things held accountable."
Danny Salk, a filmmaker from Brooklyn, brought his two young daughters, Indigo Hubbard-Salk, 10, and Cypris Hubbard-Salk, 14, to the protest.
"I came out to protest the killing of black people by cops and racism in general," Salk said. "I think it"s time we stopped racism."
He said his daughters were the ones who inspired him to come.
"They"re the activists. They said it"s very important that we go," he said. "It"s very empowering to stand in the street and chant and practice democracy. This is the only way we"re going to wake people up."
