Images and tweets from a chaotic downtown Baltimore flooded social media Monday night following what started off as a peaceful protest to mark the funeral of a young man who died in police custody.
Just hours after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25 year-old black man who mysteriously died of a spinal cord injury while in police custody, rioters began to destroy the town they call home, looting and setting fire to buildings and hurling rocks and bricks at police officers.
READ MORE: What we know about Freddie Gray and the Baltimore riots
Hashtags such as #JusticeForFreddieGray, #PeacefulProtest and #BlackLivesMatter were trending earlier this week.
Social media users were left transfixed Monday night as #BaltimoreRiots took over Twitter with the hashtag #Baltimore (and its misspelled version) #Balitmore also trending. According to social media analytic service Topsy.com, over 1.3 million tweets contained ‘Baltimore’ in the last 24 hours alone.
READ MORE: The latest Freddie Gray stories
The disturbances prompted the governor of the state of Maryland to declare a state of emergency in the city. A week-long curfew has been announced and as many as 5,000 National Guard troops could be deployed.
Dozens of Baltimore residents came out Tuesday morning to volunteer to clean up the city while law enforcement and members of the community work to ensure the events that transpired Monday night do not happen again.
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