baltimore. >> i want to thank everybody for the voice of reason and calm to maybe unite both sides and let cooler calmer heads prevail but it's still early and night is still ahead of us. the ongoing coverage of this continues after this. this is a fox news alert. protesters are hurling projectiles against the police that at times looks overmatched. shep smith has been monitoring the developments and joins us now with the very latest. shep watching these pictures you can't help but feel the city is on the verge of exploding into a blaze of violence. >> if they don't get it under control, that is our fear of our law enforcement analysts. i want to go straight to the wall because we're watching live pictures. we've been showing you these as they are looting at a cbs

pharmacy and lots of people have been in and out of there. it's our understanding that they were able to get this thing closed before the looters and rioters came in. you'll remember that all of this began this morning when the police in baltimore got word of a meme online. it's basically a flyer that is put online. sometimes they are about birthday wishes sometimes they are about rioting. today they called a purge demonstration. they said there was going to be a purge. and this went out to school students and school students -- they said at 3:00 the purge begins. our afternoon at 3:00 eastern time began and sure enough protesters began arriving as did cops in riot gear. a few people were seen throwing what looked like brick bats or small rocks and in some cases large rocks at an armored

vehicle of the police department. and these sort of -- this is live now outside of a midas store. you can see a line of officers with rioting gear. they showed up and they were kind of walling off the streets as these demonstrators, mostly kids according to the authorities, were throwing rocks at this vehicle and it just escalated. the police were trying not to back down but they ended up injuring one. one with broken bones and another unconscious after that and not responding. now we know seven police officers at minimum, are injured. that's the word from the police just a short time ago. and so far, the demonstrators really do not appear to be backing down. stay right there, nina. you'll see that they are inside this cvs station. a lot of these businesses had closed down on warnings from police. now, why these warnings went out, we really don't know. but we know about the stores that began to close at 1:00 this

afternoon eastern, that a part of the university closed down and others in this neighborhood and the mondaman mall closed at 1:00. you can see these rocks being thrown outside of the cvs and subway station. all of these businesses are closed. the students are throwing the rocks and the police are, without question outmanned. some of them don't have riot gear or shields. they are staying behind the ones that do have shields and the kids are coming at them so hard that the police are being baacking down. at this point, the police were not trying to arrest anyone and they were not given an order to do so and they did not do so. this view has gone dark but we have our views that we can put up here. once they reorganized, there was pepper spray and other things to

disperse the crowds. and the protests broke out after the funeral for freddie gray. police are not tieing this together but it is what it is. the family attorney says that this man's neck was broken freddie gray nearly snapped after cops arrested him 15 days ago. there's still no word at all from officials about what happened. we know that he got into a van, was transported by police and over that 30-minute period he walked into the van and when he came out according to his attorney his spine was almost completely severed and he died now a week ago yesterday. so he died on sunday eight days ago. many of the protesters are juveniles. they threw big rocks and bricks at police. a number of officers were retaliating by throwing the rocks back at the crowd but never any gunfire. the fbi is watching this and closely, what one group of

demonstrators trashed a cop car. you may have seen this. they jumped on the roof and beat the windshield and the windows and eventually s.w.a.t. crews responded in an armored truck. they chased off some of the protesters arrested one of them. caught him, tackled him to the ground. and making the situation even more tense, the baltimore police department reported that a credible threat that rival gangs were teaming up to quote, take out cops. three different rival gangs teaming up. if so maybe unprecedented, certainly it's highly unusual because these different gangs fight for turf and the rest among themselves for them to team up would be something brand new. police also report crowds looting at least one store here and i'm showing you the cvs. another live picture outside of the cvs. a spokesman warned that they would be using tear gas and

pepper spray and others to break up the crowds. they have already been using pepper spray. many of the businesses in downtown baltimore closed early out o the safety of their workers and their owners and now you can see it's become a bit of a field day for the lawless that should be in jail for this sort of thing, which brings us back to the beginning and that is there's been no understanding of why the baltimore police have not come forward with the details of what happened to freddie gray. freddie gray was initially accused of making eye contact with one of the police officers and here's freddie gray. a 25-year-old man who was not accused of any crime because looking at a police officer is not a crime. even in baltimore. running from the police is also not a crime after not have done anything wrong. according to judge napolitano the arrest would have been an illegal arrest. that said they did take him

away in this van and when he got out of the van, he had what his attorney called a severed spine. and freddie gray on sunday last sunday, not yesterday but the sunday before died. saturday night, night before last there were demonstrations which caused a lot of damage. there were riots, if you will in the streets there in baltimore. the family of freddie gray called for calm as they were holding the memorial service for him this morning, asked for no violence and please allow them to grieve. instead, this meme went out, if it's connected and it is and then the rioting began. about 3:15 3:20 eastern time. so close to two hours ago now. the demonstrators have said from the beginning, what happened to freddie gray. a handful of police officers have been suspended on administrative leave with pay. >> shep, quick question we need

to make note that mayor stephanie rawlings-blake said at one point to give the protesters space to -- i believe she said to destroy property if they want to do that destroy, give them room. is this a response to that? >> you know no. that was after this. it's my understanding. my guess is -- and it's just a guess -- that that's the statement that the mayor is going to regret. it's been widely condemned by those on our air and across all platforms, as i've been watching in the last hour. that's certainly not what mayors and law enforcement officers are supposed to do any more than these people whom are watching here are supposed to be up inside the cvs and taking what appears to be taking everything that they can out of the store. it all goes back to though the arrest of freddie gray and the lack of information about his death and almost a complete

information shutdown from the baltimore police department. they fear this sort of thing. that's why they send out the memos for people not to -- for people to close down in this particular neighborhood today but what they did not do was put the state police on stand by. the state police was on stand by yesterday, sunday after the violence happened on saturday night. they were not on stand by today and it was 100% clear to anyone watching these aerials today that when police came out in their riot gear, they were not prepared to arrest. we say this because they did not arrest and they were overrun by these crowds. one of our own contributors who knows maryland state police say they were activated sometime in the 4:00 hour so the last hour and seen going downtown very quickly to try to have a larger presence. they clearly did not have enough people and were not prepared fully for what happened today. >> shep can the national guard get activated or is the governor talking about activatinging the national guard at this point? >> we have heard nothing from

the governor right? we have nothing from the governor's tweet at this moment. that is not to say they won't be activated. it certainly makes sense that they would be activated. the national guard is to come in at times of unrest and provide safety provide cover to clear the streets so the residents of this area many of them i am confident are in great fear right now, so the residents can feel a sense of safety within their own homes. that's the job of government and the police to keep people safe and clearly we're in a position right now where riots have engulfed at least this part of baltimore and at least at this moment they are not under control. >> shep this is stacy. do you think in light of the negative national spotlight on law enforcement, this is why the police are having such a slow response to this? >> what i can tell you is that

police did respond in very very large numbers. but those police officers when they moved on to try to disperse these children only three or four of them were doing so at the very beginning. when police moved, the crowds grew very quickly. they shut down the subway station in this area. that's what students do not take a little yellow school bus. they get on city buses and city transportation. all of that public transportation was shut down. so after school there was nowhere for these kids to go. there they were in large numbers. what came first? the chicken or the egg? did the cops taunt the kids or did the kids taunt the cops? we don't know. i'm confident there will be an investigation. but what we have now is widespread lawlessness. at last word an officer was unresponsive and that's never good to hear and now lines of police officers as witnessed

here shutting down major streets over one of america's most historic cities a city that has had problems in these neighborhoods for decades now. the complaints of the underprivileged in this neighborhood have largely gone unheard, according to the people in this neighborhoods, have gone unheard. one in four, according to statistics cited, are in one way or another incarcerated. they have serious problems in this neighborhood. the state police was not activated and national guard was not on scene after problems of violence. >> shep it's kimberly. obviously it appears that this situation went terribly wrong from the outset. you mentioned whether or not there was probable cause for this arrest to begin with. to me i'm not seeing anything that justifies the fact that the police tried to take him in. he said that they made eye

contact and he rode away on his bicycle. what's the nexus for the police to pursue him and shackle him and showing that he was in distress drags his feet suggesting that he couldn't walk or was having a serious medical situation, this is where the whole case lies on whether or not they had even justified cause to bring him in. >> these are outstanding questions, none of which has produced an answer from anyone involved in authority in the city of baltimore. they say they are still investigating. well they have a half dozen police officers who are on administrative leave, presumably they've tried to get information from them. there are many questions about why no authorities have been arrested in this matter. judge andrew napolitano came out in the very early going of this and said based on his knowledge of the law, this arrest if it was what they reported it to be -- and that's all we can go on from an arrest -- was absolutely illegal. >> correct. >> whoever took it upon himself

or herself to effect those arrests did so illegally. so just the arrest itself would be cause for discipline. >> right. >> beyond that how he ended up dead after being in the back of a police car -- keep in mind when the government takes you away when the government takes control of you, the government is now responsible for your health and welfare because you're shackled and under the control of the government. and during that period that the government is controlling you, american citizens should reasonably be able to believe that law enforcement will take care of the very minimal things of your well-being. that you would be fed regularly, housed regularly, out in the elements and not subjected to any sort of negative treatment. after all, at the very very minimum, you're a suspect. instead, he got out of the control of the government and suddenly his spine was severed according to his attorney and eight days ago he died which leads us to today with thousands

and thousands of people who do not have any answers, who have not seen any justice, who have absolutely no idea what happened to this man except for the knowledge that it happened while he was in government custody. and that's the beginning of this. it's not the end. what we're seeing today is a bunch of hoodlums in some cases. i'm watching the corner of the v cvs as they are coming out with hands full. this reminds me after hurricane katrina. it was was the hoodlums who went out and saw a field day. there's some of that here. but the anger began way before freddie gray. the anger in baltimore and distrust of the police officers is not new at all. but the lack of forthcoming on the part of authorities who has been charged with looking at

them and riding away from them and later lost his life, that sort of thing has not ever been addressed, according to people in this neighborhood. so some of them are taking matters into their own hands and it's mighty ugly to see. >> shep, it's gutfeld. i don't know anything other than what i'm seeing right now and what i see looks like a load of fun. a fun night of chaos and looting and excuse to destroy. to me at this point, this is not about freddie. it's about opportunity. these are people out there taking advantage of a horrible situation. my question to you, how wide is this area of conflict? is this happening in other places? >> you know what we can't know, greg, is what is happening bigger picture. we've heard from the police a short time ago who said they couldn't give us an idea of how many people were here but i can tell you that the crowds were tiny when we first were reporting on this. it was kids who had gotten out

of school and as it exploded first on social media and then on national television and radio, the crowds grew and they grew greatly in numbers. are there hundreds? absolutely. are there thousands? i don't know. does it spread beyond this neighborhood? we have no reports that it has spread to other parts of baltimore. for now at least it's confined to this neighborhood. history tells us once you've screwed things up where you live they often go to other areas. just ask people in los angeles. if the authorities cannot mass enough people to contain this violence before the sun goes down in baltimore tonight, the car that you see burning on the side streets right now will be the least of our problems because in every single instance of social unrest in my 25 years in this business if you get to nightfall and they are not contained, it's going to be a long night. >> shep a couple of numbers. the police department there is

41% african-american. the police commissioner is african-american and so is the mayor there and also we've heard about two hours ago that the baltimore orioles game is still on. i guess we should stand by and expect cancellations and closings? >> that wouldn't surprise me at all because they have to maintain the safety of the people involved here and it's not just people that go to these events but people who participate in these events and it's like the no smoking rule inside businesses. it's not about the patriots but the people who have to be there. hopefully they can get things under control. what you see a distinct lack of no matter where the camera pans is law enforcement. i would guess that they are trying to take this matter on and getting everything together to get in there. live pictures of the police lining up now, a man in charge to explain what is about to go

down and they will go in with the kind of training that they've had over many years and hopefully be able to tamp this down. you mentioned that it's african-american and caucus caucasian and the halves get away -- the haves don't have trouble and the have-nots do have trouble. >> it looks like the have-nots are -- >> they are getting. >> are you seeing -- is it -- it's obviously predominantly african-american -- >> it's predominant leanne african-american community and predominantly african-american community here. if we want to create larger racial tensions on the heels of this and all the recent african-american problems that we've seen then we can do that. but if we'd like to look at this as a history of people having

problem with police not people of a color but people in a community who have had problems with the police are there big problems in that community with lawlessness? there are. the people who were there will tell you that's about poverty and lack of opportunity and being put down by the man. that's what they have said all along. if we want to turn this as a nation into something that will rile up the races, we can do that. when you get to this point where eight days later after a man dies people feel like they have a license to ill. today they took that license to ill and we can only hope that police officers and juveniles don't end up dead. >> that is almost as if you are justifying their action. >> i am in no way justifying this. i'm looking at history.

>> i don't forget history. this is really ugly right now. >> it is ugly. and history tells us when a group of people feel so helpless -- >> they don't riot when they feel helpless. >> that's what history tells us. the bad days when we look at this rioting, that's about people coming in to take advantage of a situation. but the situation, the argument can be made would never have happened had they gotten some answers about how a man in government custody, in this particular incident ended up dead instead of not under arrest. that's what presents them with this opportunity. today they have their opportunity and authorities were not ready to stop it and the mayor came up and said let's give them some space to do what they do. you know here we are. now it's about to be real serious. >> basically give them space to just -- lawlessness? >> that is what the made yor

said mayor said. >> we're going to -- shep thank you. we're going to go to doug m mckelway. >> reporter: this city is an absolute mess right now. a lot of businesses let out early. police have been korcordoning off a lot of roadways. the city is a gridlock. we've been unable to get to the cvs where the looting occurred. as i look around me i can see a line of probably 100 to 200 police officers all in riot gear about 100 feet from where i'm now standing. there's a small fire burning in the middle of the road. this is not a car.

it's a fire set in the middle of the road. people are beginning to come out of the row houses. many of them are very very agitated. many of them looking at us and sort of laughing. is it's a tense situation and as much as the freddie gray situation has sparked this from what i've been able to determine, from the people i've spoken to it's something that has been simmering for years and years and years. i spoke to an old man at the funeral today, just pulled him aside. he was a bystander, no relationship with anybody. i said what do you think about the people in baltimore city. he lives in an assisted living center. he let loose with a volley of profanity. he said this has all been going on since the early 2000s. i didn't ask him about -- he mentioned a police commissioner but i couldn't make out who that

was at the time. but he said during that time -- i think it was under the administration of martin o'malley a. very o'malley a very aggressive policing started to take hold. that basically meant that if you were an african-american male you were stopped anywhere any time for anything. open your bag of groceries, find out what it is in it he told me about an occasion where he was going to work he was taking pain medication at the time had he a prescription which required him to take four pills during the day and rather than take the bottle with him, he would wrap the pills in a small tissue and put it in his pocket. the police officer came up and frisked him out of the blue saw the four pills and carted him off to jail and he spent the next nine months trying to get out of jail and eventually in a

court appearance the case was disis manied. i spoke to other people with similar stories. the anger, resentment is palpable here. as i look around me and see people coming out of their houses -- >> doug i just want to get in here. i'm seeing a -- i saw a couple pictures of police lining up protesters are still going into the street. do you see a police presence there? >> yes. i'm looking at about 100 feet from where i am there is a line of 100, 150, maybe, each of them with billy clubs, riot gear on. they are blocking a split roadway with a median strip. traffic is being diverted around and police are blocking all lanes of traffic here. and as i said earlier there is

debris everywhere. and then as i look past the police officers about a quarter mile of away i see another line of police officers armed with riot gear. this is not typical of some of the scenes that we saw as we left downtown. we originally began, having left the funeral, to go to the city hall downtown because we expected -- somebody threw a brick at me. sorry. i'm taking cover behind a car. it's just kind of an unpredictable situation here. you can see the anger in people's faces and you know it just takes one spark to set things off. >> can you give us a context of the situation, what viewers are seeing on the screen there is a real credible threat that has developed at this hour to the police department. >> reporter: yeah. >> the police department and criminal intelligence department had information that specified that members of various gangs,

including the black guerrilla family bloods and cribs entered into a partnership to take outlaw enforcement officers. that's the backdrop. this is what is happening right now and the information that they are operating under. that's why they have on riot gear and that's why they are out. because you have people actually engaging in violent acts against the police department which isn't going to do anything to bring freddie gray back. >> and what you have here -- i'm glad you brought that up because what the situation is is an absolutely adversarial relationship. >> that's not going to bring about justice. >> reporter: no it's not. it's a standoff. the police officers when they leave their homes to go to work they are afraid. you can understand this fear that they have. god forbid should any other citizen be injured in these kinds of standoffs that we're

watching right now. these guys are under tremendous pressure. they are getting it from both ends. people throwing bricks at them and from the hierarchy and the leadership in the city to say, lay back. >> they are also getting it from the media. >> reporter: and they are also getting it from the media. so you see this kind of standoff and adversarial is how i would describe it. it's incredibly tense. >> doug where is this in relation to the harbor? somebody pointed out that there is stuff going on downtown today and if these protesters want to spread that to camden yards or the harbor how far is that? >> caller: we're at the park and i'm not familiar with the city of baltimore. i would estimate we are how far from the inner harbor? i'm asking a gentleman here. four or five miles from where we are. >> you're really pretty far from

there. >> reporter: yeah. but on saturday on saturday the protest march moved towards inner harbor and that's where they broke off and started breaking windows in the inner harbor right there. and i spoke to a police officer on route to the location where we are right now at another road block and i said where -- how far are we from cvs that's being looted. and he said i didn't even know that there was a cvs being looted. so there are pockets of violence minor outbreaks, larger outbreaks of violence to the city and it appears to be spontaneous, not well-coordinated and it certainly includes more than just that cvs that was being looted. >> doug it's julie again. has the police attempted to engage the protesters at all? >> reporter: no no no. they are standing off and the protesters are standing a good distance away from them.

i'm with residents. i'm standing by a line of row houses right here. people are coming out of their houses. that's where somebody just threw a brick or some kind of a -- what was it? i just heard it land at my feet. it's glass. but we are standing about 150 feet from where the police are and there is no intermingling of the two. >> doug, i want to just jump in here a little bit. baltimore pd tweeted to ask parents to bring their children home. they don't want kids hurt. >> reporter: right. that's an important factor. i know shep was earlier mentioned this meme that went out that sparked the afternoon violence at 3:15. that is also the time bear in mind that schools went out here in baltimore city. so a lot of these young kids who were seen looting the cvs store, probably it's safe to say, they had probably just gotten out of school. >> doug i'm curious.

i don't know baltimore very well. the mayor said something stupid about establishing a safe place for people to riot. where does she live? is a safe space ever close tone to encroaching her streets where she lives or shops? >> reporter: i don't know anything about her except for what she said saturday night after the rioting there in that small section of the inner harbor and i suspect she probably regrets those words very very much. but at the same time she is probably reflecting the attitude of a lot of her constituents. >> you're not supposed to reflect the constituents. you're supposed to inspire them. >> reporter: that may be. and as i said if she's not already regretting those comments will grow to regret them. >> doug stand by. we're going to go back to shep. >> we've been getting reports

from the state police that they are sending in backups and, frankly, the numbers were surprising to us. the state police are sending in 42 backups right away with 40 more to follow later to help control all of this. so 82 state police will be there at some point before the day is over. that is a drop in the bucket. >> where's the other zero after those numbers? >> they didn't indicate. but they clearly -- by their actions, we believe they know that something is up. a police department does not warn a mall to close early. >> yeah. >> or a university campus to close at 1:00 which it did, without believing something was coming. the police department monitors the social media. that's how the police department pulled up this meme. this is the meme -- this is the meme the online flyer that went

ought out, monday at 3:00 we go to purge. from mondawmin, this mall that i was talking to to the avenue back to downtown. you wonder if part of the reason they didn't have enough police is because they shut down the bus system. after school they were throwing rocks and bottles and bats at this armored car and it escalated and we're here now. >> shep it's julie. where is the governor on this?

where he is in on all of this? >> governor hogan is not out here today. as the chopper pans we see street after street the police are blocking streets that are not yet part of the violence. so they've shut down all of the traffic away from this. so we moved what appeared to me to be 10 to 12 blocks. our viewers watched it. and now it's being destroyed. the chopper is trying to focus on these west cams but they will get it back in there. there are people on top of vehicles. a lot of these are youngsters. you can see people carrying things away. i see a lot of young women and teenage girls there in large crowds now building. we're talking about not just that avenue where we were earlier. this is on the other side of the

cvs but there are a number of different locations. that's clear from the panning of the helicopter shot but a lot of different streets and avenues involved. >> shep, we're running a banner right there. there's a police officer unresponsive. you mentioned that he was unconscious. unresponsive tends to me something different. any word on that? >> no. and we've reached out and continue to reach out. i know that they are probably very busy offering treatment. it did say unconscious on the screen but that's not what the authorities said. others with broken bones. this is a horrible day. the one thing you have to make sure from covering this sort of thing forever, when you send out police that you have to send out enough police to where you're sure they are able to own the day. and when these police went out, there was not enough of them to own the day or they had the wrong orders or tactics but the police were moving forward, some with shields and some without,

the children as they've been described to us these teenagers, kids who just got out of school who are purging, are throwing brick bats at them and they backed up the police for a long time. then the police did some pepper spray and tear gassing, we believe. the kids we watched it happen went back rearmed with more brick bats and bottles and backed them down again. so whatever the police did, it was not enough in the early going and, you know this is these people's fault but the police weren't ready and let's just hope that all of them survive this. >> shep julie asked about the governor. i haven't heard from any civil rights leaders, have you? >> i heard ms. king telling people to get home and it has nothing to do with solving any of these problems. but to start picking on people for civil rights and what they are saying and not saying we could spend our time watching this and reporting on it as we

have street after street after street -- >> i don't know. it might be a nice idea nice timing for one of the higher profile civil rights leaders who tend to come in after the fact and say look how bad things are with the police officers but if they come in right now and say, hey, let's call for peace and have some calm here. >> i'm confident they are all watching and upon your instruction do exactly that. what we really need now is for it not to get dark before police get control and if what they have is 42 state police and then 40 more to add to the city of baltimore, that's not what is going to happen. there's been no word on the national guard. there's been no word on how they plan to retake these streets but we've watched the numbers here and if police officers were to send people into this crowd, people would get hurt. what is your alternative at this moment? i'm confident that they will figure this out. but nobody involved not the parents of these people not the

police officers and their families nobody wants this to get to nightfall. baltimore can't take that. >> you mentioned parents. where are the parents? >> reporter: well, you know i have not been on the phone with them but if we want to indict the civil rights community and the parents and instead covering what happens and later talk about whose fault it is we don't know whose fault it is. >> shep we're not indicting anyone. i'm sure a lot of people are asking the same question. >> you were asking where the parents are. surely you don't expect me to know that. >> i also don't know where we are. we have a major american city that has decades of turmoil within this neighborhood. decades. you heard the stories from doug mckelway of people being arrested for nothing, a violent crackdown, of them feeling

powerless and hopeless and nobody listening to what they were saying. one-quarter of the youth locked up. clearly there is a big problem. and then all of a sudden an african-american man is taken into a vehicle and comes out of it and dies and you get nothing from authorities except a suspension and then those who would do harm take an opportunity to do harm and here we are. but it's what has happened between all of that and today that has led to this. there is no escaping that reality. certainly people need to come forward and ask for calm no one on these streets would be able to list ten to that call for they are on this street and what they have to do now is get law enforcement to come in and fix this. this sign says "checks cashed". and now they've gone into that. many of these stores we've been watching closely, have guards that come down over them. these do not and one after another, businesses are going

down. and in no place do you see law enforcement. law enforcement apparently at this moment to restore order. otherwise, they would do that because it is law enforcement and at this point no laws are being enforced and there is a purge under way. >> plenty broken. >> sheperd, we see these disturbing images. they didn't happen in a vacuum. there's a reason that people are upset and it's important to do a thorough investigation about why the community is in cry says and there's such distrust of the police department. there was another eyewitness a suspect taken into custody that they are talking to as we speak to find out what happened. there will certainly be a civil prosecution for the wrongful death of freddie gray which seems to be so far a very

serious case given the fact that this dund appear to be a lawful arrest or detention and then serious injuries while he was taken into custody by the police department. going forward from that i expect that people will lose their job. they will not just be suspended and this will be a family that will be able to recover most likely a substantial amount of money for what transpired here and then the next step is going to be discussion a dialogue in the community and between the police department so that they can prevent this from happening again or in another city close by which will also likely be accompanied by an investigation by the department of justice and the feds will come in to make sure and see what needs to be done about community policing with respect to baltimore. >> indeed. and today, but at this moment at this particular moment at 41 minutes past 5:00 the city of baltimore is lawless.

the people the teenagers of -- they tell me it's largely young people they are marching through the streets and a great american city is seeing one of the darkest days in its history. what happens as a result of this is matters for a news channel to cover at another time. but what is happening now is business after business is being looted person after person is being involved and there are no authorities available to stop it. this is chaos as we really haven't seen remember on such a large scale, since the l.a. riots. there were terrible problems in new york city in the 1970s and then the l.a. riots came on. ever since the dawn of the fox news channel, i don't remember seeing this ever.

will authorities begin to regain control of one block and then another block and arrest people who are suspected of committing crimes make safe the people who are living their lives here amid this chaos and take back over control of this part of baltimore or will the looting and the rioting and the fires continue and spread and will a large, a great american historical city be at least in part lost and will the tensions that have flamed not have an avenue for fixing because most of what was there is no longer reparable. as we look up the two-way street the camera pans and we're about to reach a line of police officers which in recent minutes, has been still. here's that familiar scene now. if they keep going up this street you'll see a line of police officers who have -- who were standing with riot gear and

presumably they -- and there they are -- they and others like them like we've seen across this area on this chopper picture and others they will at some point, one would hope have enough people and enough direction to be able to take over from those harming it and its people. that has to happen soon. so for this moment we're witnessing a little bit of american history. will these cops be able to come in with help from other authorities, regain order and arrest those who deserve to be arrested and then be able to keep the peace in the days ahead? this did not begin today. this will not end today. and the future days will -- are -- will be decided by what happens right now and over the next hour hour and a half and it seems to me at this moment what we should do is watch this and report on it to the best of our ability. this is up the street now where

these are cops who have been brought in in vans. if history tells us anything they will begin to stage now and one after another they will try to take these streets back and i think all that people in baltimore now and all of us watching here in the united states and to our viewers watching us around the world, what we can hope is that they will be able to regain control, save this city save these people and lock up those who deserve to be in jail and for now we're witnesses to that. >> shep crowds are gathering. we're going to go back to doug mckelway on the ground. doug? >> reporter: eric here we are at the corner of woodbrick road and winds fall. the police officers are blocking the roadway. i would estimate 150 or so officers. if you look beyond that way off in the distance there's more police officers decked in riot gear and billy clubs blocking

traffic that way. it's calmed down a bit since you first came to me. the fire set in the middle of the road is dying out. it's fairly small. the remnants of a liquor bottle thrown in our direction a while ago is here and the people who threw it i don't know exactly where it came from but there were a lot more people milling about. most have retreated back into their homes and things are relatively calm here. we understand from some eyewitnesss that they took a left and are heading down towards pennsylvania avenue down towards city hall and the inner harbor. and i think just based upon the crowd dynamic that i see people probably are joining in and then milling off, milling about and

retreating as they pass on to a new neighborhood. i spoke to a police officer about five blocks behind me there at the entrance to the baltimore zoo, the maryland zoo, who said that there are several pockets of rioting breaking out in several different neighborhoods. it's not just confined to one area although we heard reports of north avenue and north pennsylvania avenue several businesses being looted and objects being thrown at the police in that general area. so as you can see, police is really doing nothing here other than blocking the roadway, standing guard waiting for something to happen if indeed it does. but from some reports, we're hearing that the crowd moved down this way, took a left and marching now towards the downtown area and the inner harbor area. we were going to try to stay with this and be mobile. it's very difficult to get to baltimore because there's so many road blocks. traffic is basically gridlocked. people are trying to get home from work and are not being sus

successful in doing so. >> we're seeing the crowds getting bigger. these are some of the biggest crowds that i've seen since the l.a. riots. we're also seeing police vans pulling up. they are clearly getting some assistance. the law enforcement is gathering and they are putting their strategy in play right now. give us your thoughts. what is your sense there? >>. >> well it did not seem to be well coordinated. that may be changes. pan over to the right because we've got auto lean of police officers heading this way and be a ambulance as well. actually the officers i spoke with were very much confused about any sort of a strategy. i said which way to the cvs where the looting is happening and they didn't know. >> so these officers are being

redirected to a new location which seems to confirm some of the reports that we've heard that confirms that the rioting moves to different locations and picks up crowds and the crowds disperse back into their neighborhoods when it passes. so it doesn't seem to be a well-coordinated approach of things and i spoke to the chief who said, i don't know where the rioting it is. from what i'm hearing, there's several pockets and it appears to be happening spontaneously. >> doug it's julie. it sounds like nobody is in charge. who is in charge? i don't understand. who is in charge of the horrible horrible situation? >> that's a good question because i'm out on the street here i'm not privy to the control here and the control of the situation.

i would imagine the mayor's office is. i would be really surprised if the governor's office wasn't involved in some degree -- to some degree and certainly it would seem to me to be very prudent to put the national guard on stand by but we've heard no reports of that. and the difficulty is there's no way to predict the mob. i described earlier and let out with a flurry of exodus of the police in this crowd. >> sometime in the early 2000s zsh go ahead. >> i was going to point out, we talked about lack of coordination and law enforcement. it seems that the rioting is

well structured and well coordinated. do we have any idea if that's the case? >> reporter: i simply don't. these things happen spontaneously through the web and through tweets and text messages. everybody has a cell phone right now as more police officers march in this direction, clearly being redeployed at some point. where to we do not know. it's impossible to tell. i assume police officers are tapped into various twitter feeds and text messaging. i hope they are. they have the capability to do so. >> real quick, just to talk about the prescription drug situation -- you're taking a look at the police officers there. tell us what you are seeing on the street and also if you had an opportunity earlier to speak to some of the officers who do they expect this evening and do they expect things to get worse?

>> i think it would be prudent to expect things to get worse because it's easier to wreak havoc when the sun is down and darkness befalls the area. i should say, as i look in the general direction of the cameras pointing right now, this street has reopened. so again, that confirms that the rioting has moved elsewhere. still a lot of police are down there. we know for a fact that other area police departments have been called in to supplement the baltimore city police department. i know that i've seen lots of prince george's county maryland police department vehicles and officers in this general area. that's a suburb of the area.

it is clearly all hands on deck. >> to me as a mom, if my son was told to come home at 3:00 somebody has got to come out there, don't you think, and tell people what is going on in their own city. if they don't, it leads to more chaos and panic for people who have nothing to do with this situation. >> that's correct. i would be surprised if a curfew were not called. necessary people emergency responders doctors, firemen, things of that sort should be allowed to be out of their homes and on the streets but the ordinary every day citizen, perhaps not. i'm sure at some level of the governor governance of this city and the state, that kind of thinking is going on but we've heard no word of any kind of a curfew or anything else of that nature. >> doug do we have word of the

next press conference of the police? >> reporter: there was a press conference scheduled. in fact that's where we were originally after the funeral took place at city hall and we were in position to record that when we got word of rioting so we decided to breakdown our gear and head to this particular location where we are now. we hit the road and that was the end of it for us. >> what are you going to do now? are you going to stay there through the night as the sun goes down? >> reporter: we're going to be monitoring and following the action wherever it takes us and doing that by looking at the baltimore city police department twitter feed. that's our primary source of information and i encourage any parent at home in baltimore to do the same. people can take safe precautions to protect their homes in a better sense by paying attention to the baltimore city police

twitter feed. >> doug just because you are there, i'm going to narrate a little bit. there are literally hundreds of police gathering in certain spots and we see the crowds of protesters or rioters kind of spread out. doug we're going to wrap up with you right now and go back to shepard smith. i think he has new news. >> we know now through doug's reporting and other reporting that authorities are being brought in from many different municipalities which is very helpful. what you have to do though is stage them properly so everybody is on the same page and they can communicate and then they will work to try to disperse these crowds. some police are on the move. first time we've seen police in mass moving from one location to another, whether they are setting up to try to take some of these streets back you would assume that's what they are doing. you have this word of governor hogan a short time ago.

wmar in baltimore, the abc news station there has just tweeted that quote, governor hogan is not yet considering this is state of emergency and won't call out the national guard, at least for now. i don't know how these decisions are made but we've seen in some cases where the national guard has been caused of causing a level of force that is deemed unnecessary. that said we've not seen this level of protesting or looting in any of the recent events not over this large of an area. sometimes cameras can be deceiving in that for instance in ferguson we were showing largely a two to three-block area. there were areas beyond that but largely a two to three-block area. clearly that is not what we have here. we had dozens sometimes hundreds of people in ferguson sometimes up to a thousand. that is not what we have here. this is widespread over many

directions. there is not law enforcement on the scene at the moment to protect property and to bring law to this -- order to it. the reason for that is quite clearly, they do not have the manpower. it appears to all of us watching on many different feeds and beyond including social networking that police are massing around the area and they appear to be attempting to contain this to the area where it is. that's going to be very difficult. there are many different ways in and around all of these different buildings. this isn't a city like new york for instance where there's only one way to get in between one building and the next. you can go in backyards and back behind buildings and now we see authorities beginning to mass and they are moving ever so slowly in different locations apparently holding ground and then about to try to take back from the lawbreakers the property. that is what appears to be under

way now. and then the question is when do they have enough manpower to go in and effect this takeover of the property without this escalating. one thing we have not heard about thus far is any of these lawbreakers fearing shots at the law keepers. but that is not to say that that is something that cannot happen and along the way, one of the things they have to try to do and i'm sure that they are working very hard to do is to keep that sort of thing from happening. because if gunfire begins there's a new situation and certainly as this thing has escalated throughout the afternoon and now approaching the early evening, as we're a minute and a half to 6:00 in baltimore, the sun will go down in an hour and a half from now and it will be much more difficult to keep an eye on who is doing what and where. law enforcement officers will have the potential at least -- they have sent out warnings saying that they think the blood

and crips are coming out to take over the lawman. again, we have not seen this yet and we'll be watching this throughout the afternoon. we're going to turn things over to "special report," i believe with bret baier. actually, back to "the five". >> thank you, shep. busy night on the news. guys there's about a minute left. final thoughts? quick thought? >> a city is lost when your defenseless. it could be worse. >> i hope they could have peace and stability and there is no more loss of life or property and we can have a peaceful demonstration. this isn't helping anybody. >> what is shocking to me about this this is not news. it's been going on for over a week and it seems that nobody could plan for what happened because this death was a horrible tragedy. they should have planned for this. >> meaning it is news but doesn't come as a surprise?

>> right. >> we're going to have to leave it right there. "special report" will pick up the continuing coverage of the breaking news in baltimore. bret's going to take it from there. this is a fox news alert. i'm bret baier. a city on edge tonight. protests have spawned violence. as you look at the funeral of the 25-year-old african-american man whose death in police custody has sparked a week of demonstrations. social media today urged young people to go on a purge. a reference to a movie about urban lawlessness. then there were reports that the national known criminal gangs were going to police officers. clearly a dangerous situation in baltimore still developing just down the road from the nation's capital. doug mckelway is in the middle of it all