Some 71 people were arrested in Cleveland overnight during protests that flared after a police officer was found not guilty in the shooting deaths of an unarmed black man and a woman following a high-speed car chase in 2012, police said on Sunday.

Protests were mostly peaceful after the verdict was announced on Saturday, Police Chief Calvin Williams told a news conference. Later in the day, some people "crossed the line," assaulting bystanders in a downtown restaurant area, briefly blocking a major highway and disrupting business at a shopping center, he said.