and the police have succeeded in enforcing it. thank you very much to joy reid and chris hayes for joining us from baltimore. up next, msnbc's coverage of the events in baltimore tonight continues. police held their line for the first 20 minutes. there was no real activity. then around 10:25, we saw smoke fill the area around pen peb avenue and north avenue. in order to disperse and right now, the streets are mostly clear. a fire started near a local library, reportedly from a molly to have cocktail. the real news tonight, one hour into there curfew, is that well over 99 % of the residents of baltimore have observed this

curfew from the start. we saw our cameras show you no more than 100, maybe 200 people on the streets in violation and they weren't on the streets for very long. >> i will give police credit for clarity as to what they were going to do. there was an intention as to a juvenile curfew and a long standing -- >> there's always been a juvenile curfew of 14 and under, 9:00 p.m. so this is in addition to that. >> essentially the truancy law which said if school is there, you ought to be in school. so there was a little bit of noise alongside that signal today. but today, the baltimore police were very very clear. at of 10 os p.m. make no mistake, we will enforce this. they talked about the enumerated exceptions. the fact that police officers would use some reasonable amount

of common sense and discretion in terms of giving people permission to stay out there on the streets if need be but everybody has to go. when they said they had a plan to deal with large numbers of people being arrested if they had to. >> we're going to go back to chris hayes who has been at that intersection at north and pennsylvania, been in the thick of it. chris, what's the situation there now? >> lawrence it's pretty calm. they have succeeded in taking this area. though now have a s.w.a.t. vehicle behind us. the s.w.a.t. officers aren't even in their riot gear. in a relaxed posture, basic will i, we have a situation where they have managed to take what was the

epicenter of congregation today and disperse it which i think was going to be the biggest challenge in terms of observing the curfew. we were in ferguson the first sign of a bottle thrown meant the tear gas came out, they marched forward, total, complete zero tolerance escalation. that has been a very very different story here in baltimore tonight where the baltimore police took a lot of incoming projectiles, they selectively used pepper balls which are much less toxic than actual tear gas. they create smoke, but they don't create that wrenching, burning sensation. so it was a much much lower key, more patient response, at least on this intersection in this corner compared to what i saw in ferguson this summer. >> chris, thank you. we'll be checking back in with

you. we also want to get as wide a perspective as we can get right now with all the different cameras we've got on the ground and all the different reporting capability that we've got. let's go the to toure who has been a spot spot. where are you and what's happened over the last few minutes? >> we're standing about 30 or 40 yards away from chris's position. as he said things are getting quiet. i think there's more media out here than citizens although there is still about 15 or 20 folks who seem determined to stay out here as long as possible. the most dramatic thing i saw, one of the young men i saw throwing bottles and bricks at the police, he came back running away from where the police line was as if he had been shot in the stomach. we saw no blood. he was on the ground for about 15 minutes by owe but i don't know who shot him, so we can't say that the police did that.

>> wait, hold on. when you say that -- when you say he appeared to have been shot, what do you mean by that? >> reporter: it appeared to the people who were with us helping flew the situation that he had been shot, whether he had been reacting as if he had been shot by rubber bullets. certainly not with a real bullet. we could see him on the ground but no blood but cringing as if intense stomach pain as if shot by a rubber bullet. we were too far away from the police to say a police officer did that. >> okay. >> so that is the most dramatic thing we saw from this position. just to speak to something you said earlier that was interesting that we saw here that we see in ferguson, that, yes, when the protest escalate to something violent, yes, the

national media comes and without that a lot of times the world does not pay attention but then it becomes hard -- i wonder if you agree. hard to create a broad coalition of national sympathy for your position when you're being violent in that way toward property and the police so you get the attention but then you lose people's sympathy, so you're taking one step forward perhaps and three steps back. >> the great strategic conundrum. it gets you a heck of a lot attention, if you can deconflict it and see it's not the same thing as constructive change you can get to a better strategic place but right now people are saying you wouldn't be here had there not be violence in our community. how to build a constructive forward thinking, you know, building kind of movement in a way that still gets the attention they need and help put one foot in front of the other. >> if the -- >> i just want to help out on

this thing about the person you saw who might have been hit with something, the 36 minutes ago the baltimore police tweeted they were deploying pepper balls at that time. so that may very well be what that young man was hit by, thanks, toure, we'll go to ron allen at another location. what is happening where you are. >> reporter: well, lawrence, as you can see there's the phalanx of police behind us, about 30 yards away or so and moved sort of in a direction that way through the intersection to clear it and i don't think the objective was so much to occupy this piece of turf so much as it was to disperse the crowd and people are gone. the only people who are standing around here now are media and some activists who are here but most of the residents who are around here protesters if you

will, they were, in fact, have gone. there was a moment when something was fired by one side or the other that was very, very acrid, very choking and it -- a lot of people thought it was tear gas. what it was exactly i don't know but i know that it caused people to just take off and run and i felt it burning my eyes, burning my throat and we pulled back several blocks. we went around that building, down that street to get away from it. the air is now clear and, again, there will be an accounting of what happened but whatever happened it was effective because people are completely gone now. it's very quiet out here. we've seen the number of huge armored -- vehicles, i guess they are. i want to be precise about what it was, military style vehicle, several were patrolling around the streets here clearing out the street.

this street now as you can see is completely empty. they have pulled down here and asked everybody to just clear out. there's still helicopters flying overhead. several of them just a very -- for a short period of time it was an intense situation. right after 10:00 we were out here with a number of elected officials including elijah cummings who were pleading with people to please go home. please go home. and there were confrontations between some of the people here, some of the activists and some of the protesters demanding and saying they had the right to be here. a lot of confrontations and then all of a sudden there were these munitions fired or thrown, firecrackers, whatever they were but caused the crowd to start to disperse and people were coughing. the first things going back and forth at the police i say they appear to be plastic water bottles thrown at the police. they responded or perhaps they

initiated this, as well by banging their shields with their batons moving forward and then you saw what happened. but, again, now i guess a half hour -- i lost track of time, 45 minutes later, things are calm. the streets are quiet. there are no people in that direction or that direction or in that direction, as well. and the police are here holding their ground telling us to stay out of the street but mission seems to be accomplished. what's going on in other parts of the city it's unclear. but here it's quiet. the police work is done because there's nobody here. >> ron allen, thank you for that report. joined by jason downs, he is one of the attorneys representing the family of freddie gray, the 25-year-old man who died in police custody. the protests of that are what

has given us all of the events that led to tonight. jason downs, what is your impression of how the police are enforcing this curfew? we are now one hour and 11 minutes into the enforcement of this curfew. how do you think the police are doing wit? >> well, at this point, it appears that the streets are right now peaceful and that's exactly what freddie gray's family wants. they are not asking for any violence. they are actually asking for the exact opposite, looking for peace and indicated that freddie gray would not have wanted any violence. and, frankly, violence would do not but distract from the real issue. the real issue being how was freddie gray's spinal cord severed so right now we're just looking for peace and the fact that there is peace, in gray's family is happy about that. >> i'd like you to listen to something the mayor said to al sharpton about the maryland law

enforcement officers' bill of rights, a law that is about 13 states have laws like this but it's been in effect since the 1970s. we don't have the clip of it right now but what she said was that she was down at the legislature last year trying to fight for reforms in that law. how would that affect the way police now police baltimore? >> well, right now police officers have ten days to essentially get their stories straight and that's something that a normal citizen like you or i, we wouldn't have that opportunity so if you or i were arrested today we would not have ten days to get our story straight so that is one of the reasons that the community is frustrated when it comes to the interaction between police officers and citizen, police officers are afforded the right to refuse essentially to make any statements about a particular case for ten days. and if that law were not in effect the police officers

involved in this case would not have had that much time to essentially come up with a story as to how freddie gray's spinal cord was severed. >> what are you expecting to happen may 1st. the police will complete their investigation, does that mean they will just hand their information to the state prosecutor, will there be any public aspect to what happens friday? >> only the police department knows that right now. at this point we are hoping that the police department will conduct a transparent investigation but at this point right now that's just not true. there are documents and there are things that the police could be turning over right now that just won't change, for example, the radio runs in this case, what were the police officers saying to each other immediately prior to this incident starting during this incident after mr. gray was in that van. those are things that could be disclosed right now because they should not change but the fact is we don't have that material

right now and very much looking forward to receiving that. we don't know whether it will be friday or next monday but we do know it could be right now today and has not been disclosed. >> mr. downs, one question for you about how things are going to unfold and the relationship between the legal avenues that you're pursuing on behalf of mr. gray's family and what's happening in the streets. obviously a bunch of simultaneous investigations, wife's got the baltimore police department as you were just describing investigating themselves, independent investigation commissioned by the family. somewhat of a federal investigation into what happened. one of the things that we saw over and over again today on what was this, you know, 99.9% peaceful day of protests with all of this constructive engagement between community leaders and protesters angry about, don't make this about politics, this is about justice for freddie gray. given all those different investigations going on, what is justice for freddie gray look like and what should people be hoping happens next? >> well, we should be hoping happens next, we get to the

bottom of what happened to freddie gray's final cord. how was it severed? how did it go from being a 25-year-old man healthy to get a cup of coffee to being unlawfully arrested and his spinal cord was severed? we are just hoping that one of these investigations turns up a truthful and accurate answer as to how mr. gray's spinal cord was severed. we are conducting our own independent investigation but our investigation necessarily relies on receiving certain information from the police department so we are hopeful that one of these investigation also get it right and we are certainly pushing to receive information from the police department. >> joycen downs, thank you very much for joining us. msnbc's rehema ellis is at baltimore city hall. rehema, what is happening now? the shot you're seeing on camera is about 20 national guard humvees moving through the

streets of baltimore to go into position. rehema. >> reporter: yeah, reaction from today, tonight and tomorrow. people want to know what's going to happen tomorrow and their futures will look like because they know what today was like. they want to know what's going to happen tomorrow. and they know what happened yesterday. you got to be a future man. >> i live in the future. >> we're going to take a break and be back with more of our live coverage, two-hour coverage of the enforcement of the curfew now one hour and 16 minutes old. there are no current violations of that curfew. there are no reports of any arrests for violating that curfew. be right back.

we're back with our live coverage of the curfew in baltimore which is now 1 hour and 18 minutes old. there have been no arrests.

there was one police action to disperse one crowd at the corner of pennsylvania avenue and north avenue, the spot expected to be difficult to clear. it has been cleared. you're looking at live images of humvees, national guard humvees moving through the streets of baltimore into position. there is no emergency situation that they are on their way to the baltimore police have been very busy tweeting every development tonight of any kind and they haven't issued a tweet in 24 minutes. that is one indication of just how calm things have been in baltimore so far this evening. >> one thing i would say just about the vehicles you're looking at particularly in the last seven or eight months, we've had all the different incidents after ferguson, one of the conversations that started was the idea of militarized policing, about policing presence that seems militaristic in american communities this. is not istic at all. this is the military.

those are u.s. military vehicles, those humvees you are seeing, the reason they're that light color they're painted camouflage for the types of wars we've been having and the strange shapes that you see in terms of the roofs of those vehicles, those are or can be used as gun turrets. obviously they don't have anybody up there manning them but this is not the local police using militarized tactics and equipment. this is -- these are troops and they've got military equipment and military vehicles, uparmored humvees and live ammunition. we're not seeing them engaged in that behavior but that's the addition to the law enforcement there. it is of a very different kind and it's a big deal for our country and our democracy whenever we see the actual u.s. military in our street. >> rachel, one of the important notes of tonight is something that we are not saying that we could have spent some portion of the last hour and 20 minutes saying and that is have they

learned nothing from ferguson? it seems to me that all enlightened and semi enlightened law enforcement officials throughout the country were watching our coverage of ferguson and all of the national television coverage of ferguson and learning lessons every night with what they were seeing on these tv screens. >> uh-huh, and i mean i think tonight at least especially -- if you take the word and judgment of our reporters on the ground who are very close to that one conflagration we saw today it seems like the baltimore police have learned those and hardened themselves as a target and they're in these hardened vehicles. they've got helmets and riot shields down in front of their helmets and of this's got riot shields that they are holing in some instances but saw the police act as an inert force, as a torres that absorbed abuse and did not reflect it back to the people dealing it out to them and saw the police use those shields and the degree to which

that their own officers were protected without physically confronting them. as best as we can tell from the reporting and angles we have the projectiles including the gas and incendiary stuff didn't come from the police, it appears to have come from the protesters, the police absorbed it, drove the protesters back without having direct confrontation and seemed to have secured the peaceful -- you know, peaceful takeover of places they were most worried about tonight. as a police force, we're seeing a very hardened target but not seeing aggression. it's a psychologically intimidating thing to see vehicles like that out on the american street but not using them in an aggressive tactical way and give a ton of credit to the community institutions of baltimore, to bring out people who had credit, who had capital in these communities to tell young people in particular to stand down and to not be the ones who were going to be

throwing stuff and not let it be like yesterday. it worked today. >> rehema ellis is at baltimore city hall joined by community activist michael scott. rehema. >> reporter: lawrence, i should tell you we're three miles from the area of penn and north where you saw the smoke rise up and here it has been calm all night and michael scott, community activist with what you have seen. >> i have seen the amazing resolve and baltimore youth initiative high school kids out talking to the mayor and youth all over the city. i've seen the jordan heights development corporation making sure that the senior center behind the burned out cvs had food that meals on wheels could be delivered and more food than they need and seen the living well make sure the doors open so youth had a place to go. >> seen your community respond in a positive way.

>> even clean up. you could not even tell it happened the morning after. >> what about tomorrow. so many things people were on the streets and protesting for, how does this translate into real change for meme in the days to come. >> i think we're hearing a new conversation. i think the conventional wisdom and conversations are often just wrong and so i think we are hearing people demand a new form of citizen participation. we've brought in the largest faith-based organizer, pico, not only money we're receiving on our website but the human resources and financial -- i mean the in kind resources to make sure folks are trained in how to do this and that's in the worst case but also in the best case scenario to make sure conscious capitalism is coming to rebuild in a way that has our future in mind. >> in a community where you've got -- the majority is 63% african-american and there's

been chronic unemployment here. how do you change things so that people get jobs? jobs equal hope for so many? >> absolutely, jobs is a big part. understanding cutting the incarceration rate is important and investing in green jobs, solar panel stuff, coating. these are not necessarily skills you need a college degree for and so we see a lot of those anythings that are opportunities in other cities that we need to bring here. >> michael scott, thank you. he is optimistic about tomorrow. lawrence. >> thank you, rehema ellis, nbc news. we're joined by chris hayes, once again, he's at the corner of pennsylvania and north where the only disturbance occurred tonight. that was broke out just about an hour ago so any of the video you are seeing from us that shows you the confrontational developments of the evening, that is at least 00 minutes old, some 45 minutes. this has been a calm situation,

hasn't it for about the last 40, 45 minutes. >> it's a pretty calm scene here. things are just -- the police have stayed here -- on the street corner and they were able to clear this area like you noted about an hour ago, some exchange, projectiles and pepper balls thrown, as well, someone toure said appears to have been instruct by a rubber bullet and a few others were although i have no personal confirmation but a pretty quiet scene and i believe reverend al sharpton i believe is joining us also in washington. rev, your reaction as to how things played out. >> well, i think that so far it has been relatively successful in terms of not having an escalation at all of violence as

one that was in ferguson. we're not seeing the police behave in an aggressive manner, near that level that we saw in ferguson, though clearly there is military equipment there as rachel points out and i think that you have to give a lot of credit to the people in the community. i spent the afternoon in baltimore, spent some time in meetings with the mayor and our local chapter there of national action network and i think that the efforts you've seen we heard from one of the community activists have been awesome and i think that you can no way underestimate the impact they've had because they had the capital in the community. they had the credibility and they're talking to their kids or kids that know them and i think it has paid off so far. the big question is going to be though do we secure justice for the family of fred gray and do

we have the change that the mayor was talking about when she talked about the state legislature and other things that will deal with the structural change needed to deal with these situations that remains something that is -- is unnerving to many people that believe the police have not acted in a respectful and fair manner. >> rev, can i ask a question. i saw -- someone said this to me and almost the same thing on social media and pointed out april 29th if the date of the l.a. riots, i believe april 29th, 1992 and someone said something like, you know, basically nothing has changed except for how often we're able to videotape things. i mean that's what 23 years ago at this point. have things changed since 1992 in terms of the specific experience of the police in these neighborhoods and also the

prospects or young folks in these neighborhoods? has it changed since 92 or 1968 which is the last time baltimore saw some widespread unrest. >> you know, we celebrated, chris, 50-year anniversary of the selma march. i was a kid there and watts happened the same year. 47 years ago i was a kid but i remember the 1992 riots. i was in l.a. protesting. and we have not seen a lot of change in terms of police community, in terms of the law and in terms of the incidents. what has changed we now have social media and the ability to video. for many years people that have been active like me were accused of making things up or hallucinating. what we have now is people are actually seeing what we've been talking about. i don't even think that there is

necessarily more incidents. i think that people are seeing it more. the question is, whether we are going to use the fact that many americans if not most americans now believe there is a problem because they're watching choke holds. they're watching people run in north charleston and get shot in the back, whether that will translate into legislative change and i think we must see that i think we are on the brink of seeing the possibility of real change but we've not arrived yet. we're just arriving at where the american public is seeing what many of us have lived and seen day after day for many years. >> rev, let me ask you this also, one of the things i'm sure people were saying this to you today and talking about community members coming together and really feeling this intense sense of sadness, pride in the neighborhood, that kept hearing that and frustration from people at one point yelling at us saying, look, you're here,

you want to show things popping off and show things burning and you want to capture one tiny sliver of what is actually happening in baltimore and west baltimore. i'm curious what you say to police officers who i basically have heard say the exact same thing to me. police officer after police officer that i've talked to here in baltimore or ferguson or around the country in the last six to eight months will say, yes, you focus on these incidents of brutality and these incidents that have video but you're failing to capture how hard the job is and how well many people do the job. what do you say to that. >> there are many police that do a real good job. i think that police risk their lives every day. but my response to them is, therefore, you ought to help us get rid of the bad apples and help to expose the cops that are brutal or that break the law just like you tell us in the community that we ought to give up those doing things wrong in

the community. you have to have it both ways. what we've not seen is a lot of demonstration in that effort. so do i think most police do good jobs? yes. but i want to see police turn in bad police and we wouldn't have to march and protest because they would be enforcing the law. the law must be enforced whether the culprit wears blue jeans or blue uniforms because they step outside of being police and i also agree with those that say that when there's violence, we get all of this attention. when there is not violence, you don't get as much attention. and the institutional and fraternitial inequalities, the high unemployment, the squalor and lack of capital investments in parts of the community. those are not news stories and should be because that's what is at the bottom of the rage and anger you hear from young people

is even if they can't describe it and give an analysis, they know the life they're living is not fair and is not equal to many other americans and it is of no doing of their own and we don't focus enough attention and those that do are demonized rather than showing the conditions people have to live in every day. >> all right, reverend al sharpton in washington, d.c., thank you so much. i'll throw it back to you, lawrence and rachel in studio in new york. >> chris hayes, before you go, i just wanted to pick up on your point you began with which was your memory of the l.a. riots of 20 years ago, president obama today in the rose garden in an extraordinary news conference which was supposed to be about pacific trade and with the -- was asked a question about this and he used the phrase decades.

that's just using his own personal experience because we know it's been going on and these problems have been going on literally longer than president obama's been alive. >> what was remarkable today in that press conference the setting of that, of course, is what's going on in washington right now. 38 miles away from the scenes that we're looking at in baltimore which is the that the japanese prime minister is visiting. not just an average visit with a world leader, a formal leader capped with a state dinner. only eight in the obama presidency. it's a big formal freaking deal in washington. this is very important in terms of the u.s./japanese relationship and in the middle of that president obama in part in response to a question from a reporter did a 14-minute semi off the cuff -- >> six-point. >> six-point. yeah.

>> enumerated his points. it turned out to be way more than six. >> he wasn't speaking from the teleprompter. i can't keep six points in my he had at my best let alone if i'm having a press conference on a totally unrelated subject but speaking at length, somewhat extemporaneously and with incredible passion on this issue and it's been interesting to see, you know, seeing reverend al talking about his own activism and other community leaders and some of the attorneys for the family how they want to turn this toward a constructive part and they've talked about feeling supported by people like eric holder, the hope that they will also be supported by the new attorney general loretta lynch, people generally feeling like president obama has been making remarks and talking about this in a way that makes them feel understood but that only -- it only goes so far.

how do you get something practical out of that even once you believe that you are being heard and all of that is about organizing political strategy and political capital and you see baltimore right now as a stable community in a big city with a lot of community community institutions that knows who it is and where they're from and what they're capable of, seeing them try to turn this into something that will improve the conditions of life in west baltimore and the relationship between the people in baltimore and their police force. seeing them try to turn it so quickly into something they want to be constructive. it's been a lesson, it's been a political lesson for the country and it's not just about this rioting but the way baltimore is stepping up. >> several modern presidents have had this happen certainly in the 1960s, george h.w. bush was president during the l.a. riots. president obama has as i said addressed this spent more time on this subject, more words on

this, directed more attention toward it through his attorney general than any president in history, certainly his words were being listened to in baltimore today. i'd like to listen to some of that beginning where he began and that was talking about there being absolutely no excuse for the violence for the rioting for destroying a cvs. for destroying a business in a community. his first note was no excuse for what we saw in terms of the looting and violence. let's listen to that. >> there's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday. it is counterproductive. when individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting.

they're not making a statement. they're stealing. when they burn down a building they're committing arson and they're destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities that rob jobs and opportunity from people in that area. >> rachel, certainly no president could have spoken with such direct authority to those high school kids who we saw on the street yesterday throwing stones at police and who were not doing that today. >> yeah, and you have seen over and over again in baltimore -- think about the cultural institutions and the civil rights history in baltimore, i mean today i got on twitter at some point looking for something totally unrelated and was very surprised to see ray lewis as the number one trending topic. something going on with the nfl.

no, it was ray lewis giving one of his trademark, you know, super intense screaming football-style pep talks but in this case to the people of baltimore specifically to the youth saying, go home. do not riot. this is not the way to do this. we'll fix this other ways. this is not the way to do it. to see a football hero, you know, and ray lewis is a lot of things but he is a football hero among them to see that. to see gang members, people not making any bones about the fact they are gang members signing a peace treaty as we heard from pastor jamal bryant but also putting themselves out on the street saying we recognize we've got capital in this community because of it. you may not like it but we will police our own streets and protect our own people to make sure this does not turn into a more violent situation. seeing the gang members come out. >> i've seen nothing on television quite like toure's interviews with a gang member saying we don't want this.

joined by steve kornacki monitoring what's going on in social media. i've been following the police tweets. that's been a pretty full account in real detail about what's been happening. what else is out there in some >> news for you in the last few minutes and this is not from baltimore but it is in a way related to baltimore, this is getting a lot of attention in social media. that is that there was a shooting at ferguson, missouri, a solidarity event. taking place on north florissant, the intersection if those sound familiar that is basically very close to where a teenager michael brown was shot this past summer on west florissant where all of the protests you remember from last summer were taking place mainly

right there right around there. now, the shooting occurred within the last hour. a man who was at this protest was shot in the leg. other protesters and a photographer from the st. louis post-dispatch newspaper then carried him to safety. to a local restaurant, i believe it's called northern chop sue which carried to safety. police arrived and reports on social media, unconfirmed but of protesters throwing rock, maybe bricks at -- some throwing rocks and bricks at the police cars and the police threatening to make arrests. you had an alderman, antonio french, another name that might be familiar. french tweeting out just moments ago that this shooting is not related to the protest. trying to still figure out exactly what it was related to but again there was a shooting within the last hour in ferguson at a solidarity protest.

>> steve, thanks for that update. we are just now minute as way, moments away from a baltimore police press conference. we're going to take a break here right before that press with that press conference.

we're back with our live coverage. the curfew is 1 hour and 43 minutes ole. relatively uneventful. the images you're seeing of that confrontation between police happened at 9:30. about 30 minutes into the curfew. >> 10:30. >> it was quickly dealt with by police and rachel, very effectively dealt with. it really -- they got this situation under control pretty quickly and people just made the decision, okay, that's it. we're going home. >> there had been a lot of people at this intersection all day long. the site of some of what was described as almost festival like atmosphere, very peaceful protesting and even things like singing and dancing at this intersection today. a site of violence yesterday. today it was a very different scene but the sheer number of people at that intersection today created worry that when the police tried to clear it it was going to be hard to do. when the police an hour before the curfew went into effect made a concerted effort to tell

people to go they were supported by members of the community, community leaders who reinforced that and said, yeah, we are going to go and be off the streets by 10 and most people went. that did leave stragglers who had a confrontation at 10:20. >> we're joined by gabe gutierrez. what is the situation where you are? >> lawrence, we're here at the intersection near the cvs. as can you see behind me we're witnessing an actual changing of the guard throughout the afternoon we had seen the state police and officers from neighboring counties in full riot gear in a relaxed posture, not only that within the past few minutes we did see the national guard move into the neighborhood. certainly a very peaceful resolution to what people had -- there was a lot of uncertainty leading up until this 10:00 curfew taking effect. our cameraman saw two people being arrested about a block

away or so but other than that just minor clashes between the demonstrators and police and as we had been describing. they moved just, you know, several feet over that hour from 10 to 11:00 and now we see that some of these local police officers as well as state police are actually leaving the area and the national guard is moving in again just some debris on the roads from some of these demonstrators but overall a very peaceful resolution tonight. guys, back to you. >> gabe, thanks. we're joined by joy reid. joy, awaiting a press conference by the police. >> we are waiting that press conference, lawrence, any minute now. that should be getting under way and the baltimore police department has been tweeting throughout the night sort of various things going on including that press conference

including obviously the thus that everybody but credentialed media should be off the streets. pretty quiet here. none but the media and what's left of the national guard and the police force. so very quiet. it will be interesting to see how extensively they answer questions about this press conference about the substance of this issue rather than just about the curfew. i'm presuming they'll want to talk about how the curfew is going. the sort of small skirmishes by the cvs we saw earlier tonight but there are a lot of questions and i know i will love to ask them and see if the media is able to get an answer about the freddie gray case. i would not hold our breath waiting for that. >> one of the things we heard in the baltimore police update was that an officer had been injured. had been involved in some kind of incident and said it was in the southern district in baltimore. injured by a group. we didn't have any further information. have you heard any further updates on that? >> reporter: i don't have any further updates on that, rachel.

that may be something that comes up at the press conference. the only things the police department have been talking about, one minor fire, things like that. very little information coming out about officers and their specific, you know, what they've been dealing with tonight. just from what we've been able to see they've been restrained. >> thanks. >> joy, stay with us. chris hayes, the images that we just saw earlier with gabe gutierrez and now behind you of officers with their face shields up, their body shields down on the ground, completely relaxed position to see those images one hour and 48 minutes into this curfew is one of the most hopeful and positive signs we could possibly expect now. >> reporter: yeah, absolutely. we're seeing something of a changing of the guard. it appears a line of national guard humvees are rolling in and

police will go home and get rest. there's been a huge police presence deployed all day for many, many hours so it looks like these national guard humvees rolling in -- i don't know if they'll secure the location or they're just going to park the humvees here and essentially be on watch. there is a whole bunch roll nothing this air what. if we can get this off to the right here, a whole number of the national guard, of course, national guard from maryland deployed pursuant to the state of emergency signed by the governor yesterday. and they now appear to be rolling into the area. yeah, it's -- there was real concern all day, everyone i talked to felt like today, tonight would be something of a tipping point. they were very worried about a trajectory that would set them on a path towards something like -- >> chris, we'll leave it there. chief -- commissioner batts is starting the news conference.

>> within the city of baltimore. first night with the curfew, with the help of many agencies, state police, the national guard, we have deployed throughout the city as a whole no major events earlier in the evening. we had a group march down into the downtown area to city hall. we had no major issues with that. we had a small group within that group of about four to five people that we stopped and had a conversation with, but allowed them to proceed on. that group had no issues. very proud of them and came down, did the first amendment rights and returned back to the area they had come from. you saw athe activity that took place at pennsylvania in north -- there again very pleased with the community and the citizens and residents policing themselves. there was music, there was dance. people had the conversations, we had officers stationed out there, but it was a very good event for the day. congressman elijah cummings was out there.

he was talking to the crowd. a lot of the men, the 300 men were out talking to the crowd making sure that they were quiet. the mayor was at different places throughout the city today making sure she was seeing and having a number of different meetings with community people. just a background after the events today, we've had one or two arrests for looting in the central district, we've had one arrest for disorderly conduct in the eastern district. also we had one officer had a drive-by brandishing of a weapon in the eastern district within the last 30 minutes and the western district, where that's north of pennsylvania in that area we've had approximately seven arrests. in totality in the city after the curfew went up we've had about ten total arrests, i get reports from the organization that we do not have a lot of activity or movement throughout the city as a whole so the

curfew is, in fact, working as the mayor had called. one of the interesting things i happened by and without answering questions is i exited a building to go to a meeting and had pretty close to 12 to have young adults waiting in line to become police officers at the baltimore police department. in light of the activities and issues i asked them are you still willing and able and wanting, they were enthusiastic and excited about becoming members of the baltimore police department that says a lot again tonight, the biggest thing citizens are safe. the city is stable. we hope to maintain it that way. we are going to place the fat guard out at north and pennsylvania probably for approximately a two to three-block radius to sustain it and stabilize it and make sure everything is okay and residents are safe. are there a couple questions i can answer? >> that about the injured officer in the southern district?

>> i don't have information. we were taking rocks earlier in the southern district. we had a young leader out there who did a very good job of responding and a very peaceful way. they ended up arresting i believe it was what i was told about three to four juveniles down in that area so i don't know about the injured officers but we'll follow up. >> the arrests, the ten arrests all for curfew violations -- >> various -- i've given you feedback on it. without my glasses in the central district we had two for looting. in the eastern district one disorderly conduct. and then in the western district, we had i believe the vast majority for curfew violations, that was seven total. ten all total. >> all ten were -- >> yes. >> it was cleared out around pennsylvania, about a dozen protesters and the press over

there and then the line of police, with the mind-set the decision in this -- >> we -- as the skirmish line moved forward i know several times to their flanks off to the sides they were taking rocks and glass coming in. they were trying to push the crowd away and out apparently it worked. firing the pepper balls. we tried to deploy smoke with the wind shifting it blinded us at the same time and hole and let the smoke clear and like i said they were taking rocks and pellets and trying to push people further and also used the armored cars to go out and push the participations off of the street. >> folk, we'll have another briefing tomorrow between 12:00 and 1:00. for the next couple of hours we'll continue to put updates over our social media accounts. any questions, send them to the news address and keep you updated in the moving.

>> what about an officer being shot at -- >> that was a -- >> and that is the summary from police commissioner anthony batts, a total of ten arrests after 235 yesterday and last night. only 7 of those arrests were for curfew violations. joy reid, there were a couple of other arrests, one for brandishing a weapon and one for disorderly conduct but this is at this stage a remarkable success for mayor stephanie rawlings-blake who made the call on this curfew. >> yeah, lawrence, this was a call that not everyone agreed with. we talked to some people at the church where we were for much of the night who were not exactly big fans of the idea of a curfew precisely because of the fear that it would increase the number of negative contacts between police and let's face it very young people who would probably be the ones most likely to defy it. anything we would think of as

sort of negative behavior, so a good night and just i think the restraint shown by the police officers we can see that happening. their marching orders were to be calm and take it with a grain of salt. we drove to city hall through a police checkpoint. quite cordial. very professional. empty. not a lot of people in the street. when the service was over at 9:00 people high-tailed it and said they were home and wanted to be up doors. even the pastor said that's where he was headed too. so all quiet so far. >> joy reid, you're over near the city hall location where you've got that camera. about three miles away from -- about three miles we have chris hayes back at pennsylvania and north which interesting, the

commissioner tonight, chris, was talking about how the location there at pennsylvania and north is not going to be handled tonight by baltimore police officers. they are essentially at least for the foreseeable future hand over custody of that intersection to the national guard. he said at a two to three-block radius. what you saw what you were describing as a changing of the guard. the national guard taking over responsibilities there. >> reporter: yeah, they're setting up shop here. there's a bunch of vehicles that have been deployed in the intersection, police have fallen back. you got the sense that there was some sort of presence, particularly of county tactical units that had been kind of kept away from sight of the crowd but near enough to deploy if needed. right now this line of humvees rolled in. this intersection is completely cleared. it's essentially all law enforcement of various stripes.

and national guard will be standing watch. we have national guardsmen in their camouflage and fatigues and their assault rifles and helmets pacing around guarding this area right now. >> i mean, it is even in a peaceful circumstance i will say as a citizen it is jarring to see members of the u.s. military deployed on american streets. we're used to seeing heavily military terrorized police but the military itself is a hard thing. i will say looking ahead, this is supposed to be the first night of a week-long curfew. we don't know what the rest of tonight will be like or subsequent days will be like or how baltimore is going to react. more information becomes known about the freddie gray investigation and as people decide on their own terms how they want to react and protest if they want to keep doing that. this is going -- this is still a work in progress but tonight it is quiet and heavily armed on the streets of baltimore.

>> it is now about an hour and a half from the worst point in the conflicts that we saw tonight and, rachel, i have to say when that smoke was filling that intersection, it looked like we were in a very difficult situation and it didn't look like there was going to be an easy or quick way out of this. >> that's right and -- >> it was really terrifying to sit here and watch. >> it's hard to watch because it's our responsibility to explain what's going on and hard to see the trajectories, who might be responsible even with multiple people on the ground what happens in a situation like that and why it does activate a fear response is that it is a cayoting situation. that was a short-lived period of chaos which appeared to involve a small number of people and since then baltimore is calm. >> now, two ours basically into this curfew and it is holding and the police have succeeded in enforcing it. thank you very much to joy reid and chris hayes for joining us from baltimore.

up next, msnbc's coverage of the events in baltimore tonight continues. as. break news right now. i'm betty nguyen thank you for joining us. the overnight curfew is ending as we speak. the cover of the baltimore sun says unsettled peace. last night in the wake of calm -- it was tense but not violent. and members of the community called for peace. >> do not disrespect us and break things. okay. leave the officers alone. >> our correspondents on the ground say it became quiet with humv