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After four days of protest, the shopkeeper in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday wiped out glass, loaded with windows, and tried to understand the violence that broke out during demonstrations against immigration attacks near the city centre.
Around Little Tokyo and other downtown LA districts, workers and business owners woke up to fresh graffiti at government buildings and businesses on Tuesday, shattering store windows and increasing police presence. Many businesses remained closed during the protests. Some reopened for the first time on Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Police Department reported Tuesday that 96 people had been arrested the night before after failing to disperse in the downtown area. Additionally, one person was arrested on 14 suspects of assaulting a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, vandalism and looting, according to the LAPD. Two LA police officers who were injured and taken to hospital were treated and released.
On Tuesday morning, workers installed plywood in broken windows and scrubbed them with graffiti. It is an obscene attack primarily targeting President Trump and immigrants and customs enforcement agents.
According to a nearby business owner, the Theater Jewelry Center and several adjacent businesses were struck by the destroyers who shattered windows on Monday and smashed display cases on Monday.
It is unknown if the item was stolen from any company.
“There’s a lot of anxiety and frustration right now in Downtown,” said jeweller Raz Tatanian, a downtown tenant at a nearby building, who also broke into at least two separate businesses on Seventh Avenue.
“These are opportunistic foodlum actions that don’t bother immigration,” he said. “Yes, I protest the ice, but don’t steal it from these people’s livelihoods.”
Tatanian sentiment was echoed by several downtown shopkeepers who said they supported the protest but blamed the violence and damage to property following the latest demonstrations.
On South Broadway, traffic on foot was sparse Tuesday morning. This is usually a street filled with shoppers and pedestrians. The T-Mobile store has wooden planks, with other storefronts closed or metal gates pulled down.
El Polo Outlets on Broadway and 3rd Avenue have been closed for the past two days and reopened at 9am Tuesday.
“It was very scary, especially for my rice cooker,” she said. The workers added that they are scared of both the protest and the ice attack.
Nearby, Perfume and Accessories Owner Monty Babsar, owner of Bargain Line 2, wiped out the broken glass from the display case in the store’s window on Tuesday morning.
He said he received a warning from the security company around 12:30am and notified him that someone had broken his window. He called the landlord to report the break-in, but his landlord said he told him that a group of people were trying to break into several other storefronts connected to the same building on Hill and Seventh Avenue.
When he arrived downtown, Babsar said he had found hundreds of people outside of his business. He couldn’t just look.
Los Angeles police eventually dispersed the crowd, Babsar said.
He stayed in his business until about 4am.
“It’s so confusing. What are you accomplishing here by doing this?” he asked, pointing to the broken glass. “I support the protest. I am an Indian, an immigrant. I am a US citizen now. We dream of coming to Los Angeles.
The T-Mobile store on South Broadway had been invaded during the protest, and Carlos T, the cashier of Blue Bottle Coffee across the street, refused to give him his full name. The coffee retailer was closed on Monday as a precautionary measure and reopened Tuesday morning, he said.
Even downtown business owners who survived serious damage were upset and were trying to understand the destruction.
Kazumi Tsuji, the shopkeeper of Little Tokio, wandered the business and surrounding buildings with a handful of burning sages. “It’s about keeping evil spirits away,” she said.
Her shop was not damaged when police and protesters passed through small Tokyo on Monday evening. But just around the corner of her shop, a group of what appears to be teenagers who have smashed a glass door with a skateboard near the shoe palace.
“I’m fine with protests,” she said.
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