He said it was the Baltimore police decision to form a skirmish line across the bus loop that forced the initial diversion of buses. He said MTA police officers "put their own lives on the line over and over again" to get students onto the metro and onto buses at a stop farther from the mall — which the agency had told schools police to direct students toward. And he said it was "only after all the students and residents were safely on transit" that the MTA "shut down the final transit services," again at the request of Baltimore police.