Two Dozen Arrested in Anaheim as Protests Over Police Shooting Grow

The protests over a weekend police shooting in Anaheim, California, are worth paying attention to because they've persisted for four days now and they're becoming increasingly violent. On Tuesday night through about 2 a.m. Monday, Pacific time, police battled protesters who broke shop windows, lit fires, and threw rocks, leading to 24 arrests. It's something they've had to do daily since an officer shot Manuel Diaz during a chase on Saturday. Diaz was reportedly unarmed, but ran when officers tried to question him, and they shot him in the ensuing chase.

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Since then, the' intensity of the protests has grown. Unlike the weekend's unrest, which saw five arrests as about 100 protesters set fire to dumpsters and threw rocks at police. The protests on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning involved more than 500 people and 250 police officers, and though most were peaceful, The Associated Press' Amy Taxin and Gillian Flaccus reported. Police Sgt. Bob Dunn "says a police officer, two members of the media and some protesters were injured, but nobody was hospitalized." Protesters threw chairs through the window of a Starbucks, NBCNews.com reported, and they smashed other windows in the same strip mall. "At one point, police shut down a gas station when protesters were seen filling canisters with gas," Dunn told The AP. Police responded by firing beanbags and pepper balls at the protesters, and stood guard in front of the stores with shotguns, NBC reports. The city is investigating the original shooting, and the FBI is looking into whether it might have been a civil right's violation, The AP notes.

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[All photos via Reuters]

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