City and county leaders have taken drastic measures after several chaotic nights of peaceful protests turned to violent riots.

The city of Buffalo and Erie County will now be under a curfew in an attempt to quell the violence and vandalism. Effective Tuesday night, people will be required to stay off the streets from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m.

The curfew applies to the city of Buffalo through Monday morning. For the rest of the county, it will be determined on a daily basis.

"Children in our community of all backgrounds are scared. They're frightened by what's happening right now," says Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.

Mayor Brown addressed the protests that have become violent in the city over the past few nights and led to the curfew order.

"To protect our businesses, to protect our residents, and to protect peaceful protesters exercising their freedom of speech rights," Brown says.

Brown believes the protests over racism and injustice after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis are warranted. But all of the looting, fires, vandalism and attacking of police, he calls unacceptable.

"I feel the sting and pain of racism every single day myself," Brown says. "Protest with a purpose and peacefully. If you don't have purpose to protest, if you don't have the message to protest with, stay home."

City officials say Monday's protest that started in Niagara Square was indeed peaceful, even as demonstrators marched across the city to Bailey Avenue. That's when things took a turn in front of the E-District police station. Officers were injured and businesses were vandalized and looted.

"When you have large crowds assembled, it's very easy for somebody to agitate a situation and it starts the mob mentality," says Capt. Jeff Rinaldo of the Buffalo Police Department.

The decision to include all of Erie County under the curfew came after talks between the county executive and town and city leaders.

"People are probably are thinking, ‘Why are there curfews in some of our rural communities?’ Well, some of those rural communities are offering police assistance to the inner rings (suburbs) or even the city of Buffalo, and they felt it was appropriate to have a curfew for the whole county to address what we saw last night and two nights ago," Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz adds.

He says that he does regret not having a curfew in place Monday night, while adding he takes no pleasure in placing the order and supports peaceful protests about police brutality and race relations.

The curfew does not apply to essential workers or people traveling from the airport. Violators could face a misdemeanor charge.

Mayor Brown is recommending that people not protest every day or after dark. As for keeping control of the situation, he says bringing in the National Guard is not necessary and that local police and reinforcements from state troopers can do the job.

"Our number one priority is not to over-police our community, to over-police our city. But to make sure at the same time that people are safe, that property is safe and people who are peacefully protesting are safe," he says.