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Berkeley Stays Strong For A 4th Night of Protests

by Alicia Lu

After three solid nights of demonstrations, Berkeley residents are staying strong. Protesters in Berkeley marched for a fourth night against grand jury decisions not to indict the police officers in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Though the marches were visibly less intense than previous days, when 1,500 marchers took to the streets and blocked traffic on Interstate 80, hundreds of people continued the march on Tuesday night chanting against police brutality and racial injustice, using the now-historical chant, "Hands up, don't shoot!"

The march began around 5 p.m., when dozens convened near the UC Berkeley campus and made their way to City Hall and through downtown Berkeley toward Oakland. By 8 p.m. the crowd had grown to more than 300 people. According to the LA Times, the demonstrations were peaceful as of 8:15 p.m., but at around 9 p.m. marchers amped up the civil disturbance by climbing through a fence and past police in riot gear onto Highway 24. California Highway Patrol responded by firing smoke projectiles and beanbags into the crowd, making several arrests before clearing the protesters off the westbound lanes.

By midnight, the demonstrations devolved into violence as some began to vandalize buildings and break store windows. Though the recent protests in Berkeley have often resorted to violence and looting, they are making an impact nonetheless. Some of the images from the past few days evoke the same powerful images from the Rodney King protests in Berkeley over two decades ago. And if pictures from the fourth night are any indication, Berkeley's resolve is stronger than ever.

Image: Occupy Wall Street/Twitter