Protesters, Police Clash as Chicago Hosts NATO

Police and protesters clashed over the weekend as thousands of demonstrators took to the Chicago streets to protest the NATO summit in the city.

Forty-five protesters were arrested Sunday night as some demonstrators attempted to move towards the international summit. There were reports of injuries to both protesters and police officers, the Chicago Tribune reports. The arrests came after a brief ceremony by veterans, during which many attempted to give back their service medals.

Although the sanctioned protests -- like the veterans' protest and the National Nurses United protest on Friday -- were overall peaceful, a series of smaller, unsanctioned marches, some under the direction of "black bloc" anarchist protesters, led to clashes with police and multiple arrests.

As the New York Times reports, witnesses said that some police officers hit protesters with batons, while some protesters threw red paint, sticks, and other small objects at police.

Allison Kilkenny, a journalist working for progressive magazine The Nation, reported that police were also acting "extremely aggressively" towards the media covering the demonstrations. According to a tracker of journalist arrests at protests, a photographer who has worked for Reuters and a citizen journalist were arrested over the weekend, with a handful of journalists -- some credentialed -- reportedly being hit with batons. Live-streamer Tim Pool and a group of other citizen journalists were also pulled over at gunpoint and detained on Sunday morning, NBC Chicago reports. Police say the vehicle the group were in matched the description of another vehicle they were looking for.

Organizers have planned a final, if smaller, day of protests for Monday.