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The Washington Post

DeRay Mckesson, one of the most prominent activists associated with the police reform protest movement, was arrested in Baton Rouge, where he travelled earlier Saturday to demonstrate in solidarity with residents angered by the recent death of Alton Sterling after an officer-involved shooting that was captured on video.
He was released Sunday afternoon after being taken into custody about 11pm the night before.
Two fellow activists who witnessed the arrest described it as a physically violent encounter.
“The officers won’t give their names,” said Brittany Packnett, a co-founder with Mckesson of the group Campaign Zero, a prominent activist collective. “He was clearly targeted.”
She later tweeted that 100 people were arrested in Baton Rouge. A Baton Rouge parish prison official later said that more than 120 people were arrested across multiple protest sites.
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Mckesson was charged with obstructing a highway of commerce, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorised to talk to reporters. She said bond had not been set as of late Sunday morning.
 began forcibly dispersing the crowds. As Mckesson and a group of about eight people walked down the street, an officer approached him and told him that he had been “flagged” and that he would be arrested if he left the sidewalk again.
Moments later, she said, two officers forcefully arrested Mckesson.
“They tackled him. One officer hit the top of his body and another officer the bottom,” Packnett said.
The altercation knocked the phone from Mckesson’s hand, ending his live broadcast of the demonstration, she said.
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Blurry video of the moments before Mckesson was taken into custody that was provided to The Post captures his verbal exchange with the officers.
“The police continue to just provoke people,” Mckesson says after an officer yells to a group of people that if they step on the roadway, they will be arrested.
Then an officer says the man in the “loud shoes” has been “flagged”: “You in them loud shoes, if I see you in the road, if I get close to you, you’re going to jail,” an officer can be heard saying on the video.
In response, Packnett says: “We’re on the shoulder. There is no sidewalk, sir.”
Mckesson is known for wearing a pair of red Nike sneakers and a blue vest to the protests he attends.
The group was walking away from a protest that had been dispersed, travelling alongside road traffic on a street that they said does not have a sidewalk.
Activists continued to talk as they walked up the side of the street. Moments later, an officer’s voice is heard: “City police, you’re under arrest.”
“What?” Mckesson exclaims. “I’m under arrest, y’all.”
Then the video and audio feed ends.
As Packnett and Johnetta Elzie, another prominent protester, tweeted in outrage, word spread quickly through the ranks of national police-reform activists, who feared that Mckesson was targeted deliberately and may be harmed in police custody.
In a text message from police custody, Mckesson had said he and 33 others were in custody together, wrists tied, and being taken to a police precinct.
News of Mckesson’s arrest exploded on social media, with more than 100,000 tweets before dawn using the hashtag #FreeDeray. Many had urged people to call Baton Rouge police to demand his release.


Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson is released after arrest by Baton Rouge police

Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson walks out of the Baton Rouge jail on Sunday. Photo: AP

Demonstrators block traffic to protest the shooting death of Alton Sterling near the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. July 9, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

Police officer arrest a man for block Airline Highway, a major road that passes in front of the Baton Rouge Police Department headquarters, Saturday, July 9, 2016, as people protest the shooting death of a black man, Alton Sterling, by two white police officers at a convenience store parking lot last week in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Max Becherer)

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