DALLAS _ Rallies swept the country Friday into Saturday with police facing off against protesters disturbed by recent police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.
The protests in at least 18 cities were similar to the Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas on Thursday at which a gunman shot a dozen police officers, killing five.
Demonstrators took to the streets Friday night in Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, New York, Omaha, Detroit, New Orleans, Rochester, N.Y., Baton Rouge, La., Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, San Francisco, Sacramento, Calif., Phoenix and Little Rock, Ark.
In some places across the country, protesters and police stood side by side without clashing. But in others, conflict erupted.
In Atlanta, a crowd of about 2,000 people blocked a downtown interstate highway ramp during a march organized by the NAACP that resulted in two arrests by the Georgia State Patrol.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed attended the march and told protesters he respected their right to demonstrate.
"We're respecting their First Amendment rights. We're the home of Dr. Martin Luther King. The only thing I ask is that they not take the freeways," Reed said. "Dr. King would never take a freeway."
In Phoenix, police in riot gear used pepper spray and fired bean bags at hundreds of protesters to prevent them from blocking ramps to Interstate 10. Some protesters threw rocks at police, according to the Arizona Republic.
The crowd eventually dwindled, and three arrests were reported.
In Rochester, N.Y., a similar protest that drew about 400 people ended with 40 arrests late Friday, including two television reporters who said they were handcuffed and detained for leaving a sidewalk to cover the rally.
Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminelli Saturday defended the decision to arrest protesters, saying the gathering, which had blocked a downtown intersection, became a danger to public safety. Nearly all the city's police resources, and dozens of officers from elsewhere in upstate New York, were needed to secure the crowd, he said.
Rochester Mayor Lovely A. Warren said at a news conference that the standoff ended without injuries, property damage or officers deploying pepper spray or other weapons.
"We did many things right," she said, according to the New York Upstate news website.
But the arrests of two African American reporters from local WHAM-TV drew a strong reaction from the station's general manager, Chuck Samuels.
"Outrageous for RPD to handcuff two African American @13wham reporters for doing their jobs covering protests," he tweeted.
The protests were sparked by the deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn., black men whose shootings by police were captured on video that quickly provoked outrage among national leaders and resulted in the launching of federal investigations.
Late Friday, protesters gathered for a silent vigil in Minneapolis.
In Baton Rouge, protesters assembled outside police headquarters, where officers stood guard, some in riot gear, and also at the convenience store where Sterling was shot earlier in the week.
