Man Who Moonwalked Through the Baltimore Protests

(VIA COMPLEX) Tear gas sinks into your clothes. It sits in your sinuses and at the back of your throat, at the limit of your gag reflex. Makes you want to puke. So even when you cut and run from the police firing pepper balls and canisters of tear gas into the street, even when you put miles and minutes between yourself and those with shields and helmets, the fact of the confrontation is stuck to your body. At 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, the curfew ordered by Baltimore's mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake went into effect. At 10, the crowd gathered at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and W North Avenue had changed from a positive gathering of hundreds promoting community sufficiency, into a stripped down collection of people, many wearing bandanas and dust masks. Police helicopters circled the area telling the crowd to disperse, that the curfew was now in effect and would remain that way until 5 a.m., that those who did not disperse would be arrested. An older man and woman using a megaphone pleaded with the masked-up onlookers to leave. One prepared young woman immediately snapped back with her own megaphone that this was "bigger than right now"—she wouldn't be leaving and neither would the people with her. A water bottle cut an arc through the air and clattered against the shields of the police line. At 10:15, smoke cannisters hit the center of the intersection. The police brought out the tear gas soon after.

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