Mckesson Calls For Peace In Wake of Baton Rouge Shooting

BALTIMORE, Md. (WJZ) -- Baltimore's DeRay Mckesson, one of the faces of the Black Lives Matter movement, is calling for an end to the violence that has for weeks dominated headlines across the country.

In a phone interview with The New York Times following Sunday's shooting in Baton Rouge that killed three police officers and injured several others, Mckesson advocated for peace instead.

"The movement began as a call to end violence," he told the Times. "That call remains."

Mckesson, who was among more than 100 people arrested during a rally protesting the July 5 police shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, just recently took part in a roundtable discussion hosted by President Obama. The president brought together activists, law enforcement and lawmakers to devise immediate solutions to close the rift between the black community and police.

The meeting was unlike any other he has taken part in, Mckesson told reporters at a news briefing outside the White House directly afterward. The president, he said, was spurring those he had gathered for more concrete solutions than just back-and-forth banter about how to remedy the frayed relations. Plus, he noted, he got a chance to speak face-to-face with law enforcement leaders from Louisiana, where he had only days before been incarcerated, a brush with the law he described as "unpleasant."

Mckesson, who's now interim chief human capital officer for Baltimore City Public Schools, has been an outspoken advocate for the movement he helped craft in the wake of the deaths of black men nationwide, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Freddie Gray here in Baltimore.

But on social media and in his interview with the Times following Sunday's bloodshed, his words were measured.

"I'm waiting for more information like everybody else," he told the newspaper. "I have more questions than answers"