Top Los Angeles County prosecutors have attacked police and brought charges against eight people who allegedly robbed the destroyed and stolen buildings during a recent protest against the immigrant sweeping.
Dist at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. Atty. Nathan Hochman vowed to “strongly protect the rights of people to gather together peacefully,” but warned that those engaged in violence, theft or destruction of their property would face serious consequences.
“If people want to throw insults, we protect it,” he said. “If people want to engage in a crime, we prosecute it.”
Hochman then addressed the broader narrative that has been entrenched in national media as the city is under siege, saying that the portrayal of “somehow, every day, there’s another explosive fireworks on our streets” was wrong.
“Let me put this into perspective for you,” he said. “There are 11 million people in this county, and 4 million in this city. … Thousands are engaged in legal protests. That means 99.9% of people living in Los Angeles, or Los Angeles County, have not protested at all.”
His office announced that three people have been charged with using fireworks and motorcycles to injure officers.
Juan Rodriguez of Gardena was charged with assaulting a peace officer, and after allegedly distributing fireworks during protests and threw them at police, he resisted arrests against officers and defended violence against the officers.
Randy Paul Lewis and Georgina Lavalero were also charged with assaulting police in connection with a Sunday afternoon incident near Temple and Alameda Street near the downtown immigration detention center, which was the flash point of many recent demonstrations. On Sunday, two motorcycles thrust through the crowd, revolving the engines in the cheers of the crowd. A while later, the motorcycle crashed near the line of LAPD officers blocking Alameda Street.
On Wednesday, Hochman and LAPD chief Jim McDonnell said Ruiz and Ravallero deliberately slammed their bikes into the police skirmish line. If convicted as accusations, both will face prison for more than six years.
Hochman also announced charges against two people who took part in the break-in at a Nike store in downtown Los Angeles Sunday night, as well as felony vandalism charges against those accused of induction in the Downtown Hall of Fame, which houses the local power of attorney general and the Sheriff’s Department headquarters.
It was not immediately clear that each could appear in court or who their defense attorney was.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said investigators have continued to review the video, saying additional arrests are likely and provided a message to those who violated the law but were not taken into custody.
“If you didn’t get caught up in the last few nights, there’s a lot of evidence,” he said. “Maybe you’ll have a detective who will knock on your door.”
At a press conference Wednesday, Hochman, Luna and McDonnell said they would protect the protesters’ first amendment rights, but that the violence would not be tolerated.
“There is a big distinction between individuals who protest and demonstrate [and] It’s violent, destructive, essentially anarchist,” Luna said. “What we’re talking about is an individual who doesn’t care about issues at hand.”
During the success of last year’s election campaign, Hochman promised to tighten certain types of protest-related crimes, picking out people who block highways and damaging their property.
Generally, Los Angeles area prosecutors drew a solid line between the First Amendment and violence when deciding to claim protesters during past cases of large-scale unrest. After George Floyd’s 2020 murder in Minneapolis, both the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office and former DIST were arrested by the LAPD and other agencies for failing to comply with legal orders and other misdemeanors. Atty. George Gascon rejected these cases almost universally.
Earlier this year, the City Attorney’s Office announced it would bring charges against two of the 350 people cited in the campus protests against Israel’s Gaza gunfire last year. The District Attorney’s Office filed felony charges against two people who allegedly attacked a pro-Palestinian camp at UCLA last year.
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