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A police officer phalanx on horseback surrounds a person who is knocked to the ground and repeatedly slapped with a baton.
Australian TV news reporters feel pain when they are shot with rubber bullets while compiling live broadcasts.
The crowd rallied over the 101 highway, prompting California Highway Patrol officers detaining protesters to rocks and concrete clumps, volleys of flash bang renades.
These incidents and others filmed on video have recently become a virus as immigrant protests reached the boiling point in Los Angeles.
Leaders of the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have long argued that they have no role in enforcing citizen immigration. Still, the two largest police agencies in the area were suddenly at the forefront of Trump administration’s crackdown, clashing with demonstrators on the streets.
Waymo Taxis Burn on Los Angeles Street protests the city-wide raids by thousands of ice immigrants.
(Robert Gautier/Los Angeles Times)
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell condemned the actions of people carrying out “nasty” violence.
“This has become out of control,” McDonnell said at a news conference on Sunday when asked if President Trump supported the deployment of the National Guard forces. After news came Monday that the president was sending hundreds of Marines to the city, McDonnell said adding more soldiers to the mix without “clear adjustments” would “sue important logistical and operational challenges for us who protected the city.”
Sheriff Robert Luna told the Times that despite maintaining an official policy of the department not supporting immigration operations, she is ready to support federal agents in certain circumstances.
“They launch an attack, they call and ask for help, we respond,” Luna said.
Both publicly and behind the scenes, the situation has led to tensions with Los Angeles officials questioning whether local law enforcement is crossing the line with offensive crowd control tactics or whether they are in a situation where LAPD chiefs and others are held in a loss situation with Trump, who is responsible for not being sufficient.
“The federal government puts everyone in the city, especially law enforcement, in a situation where it’s really messed up,” said City Council President Markey Harris Dawson. “They started a riot, and then they said, ‘Well, you can’t handle a riot, so we send the troops.”
Los Angeles police officers will push protesters back near a federal building in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
In a statement, LAPD said officers made 50 arrests on Saturday and Sunday, primarily failing to comply with the dispersed order. They also arrested a man who was allegedly plunged his motorcycle into the skirmishing officer’s line, while the other arrested another man for attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail.
Five officers were injured while police the protests, the department said, but five police horses were also minor injuries. The department said officers fired more than 600 so-called few deadly rounds to subdue the hostile crowd.
Although the LAPD has changed the way it handles protests in recent years, it has stepped away from some of the severe tactics that have sparked widespread criticism in the past, the city pays millions of people for crowd management-related lawsuits each year.
As of Monday, the Home Office had launched an investigation into seven complaints about executive misconduct, including the shooting of an Australian television news reporter, LAPD Deputy Director Michael Limkunas said he runs the department’s Specialist Standards Office.
He further said the unit investigation unit of the department considering all serious force use was investigating two cases “due to the possibility of serious injuries.”
“We continue to review the videos and monitor the situation,” he said.
The highly-profile incident caught up in the video, combined with mixed messages from LA officials, created an opportunity for the White House to control the story.
Mayor Karen Bass told reporters on Saturday that the protests were being curtailed, but the LAPD chief publicly lamented his department was overwhelmed by the explosion of violence. Trump seized these comments and wrote in a post about the true society that the situation in Los Angeles “looks really bad.”
“Very well-respected LAPD chief Jim McDonnell has just said that protesters have become so aggressive that they have to reassess the situation,” Trump wrote on the right-wing social media platform after midnight on Monday. “He’s now, now!!! Don’t let these thugs get away with this. Make America great again!!!”
Protesters clash with downtown police near the Virginia outpatient clinic in Los Angeles on Sunday.
(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)
On the streets over the weekend, local police officers often find themselves defending themselves, confronting unruly crowds.
CMDR. Oscar Barragan of the LA County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Operations Division explained the scene on Sunday when his units responded to a protest near Home Depot in Paramount. Rumors have spread to social media about attacks targeting migrant workers in the store, but Barragan said the real issue is at a nearby federal immigration office and is being used as a staging area.
“Social media took over, the false narrative started to grow, and it just got out of control,” he said.
Barragan said as the Scrum moved west towards the 710 Highway and the Compton border, “there are people who fire mortars at us and rocks and objects.” He said some people placed claws and cinder blocks on the streets in an attempt to block police response.
“It’s become quite shaggy,” Barragan said. “They kept launching all sorts of fireworks you could imagine and it was consistent.”
He said local law enforcement would allow protests, but he said there would be a need to step up to restore order when things get out of hand.
“The sheriff has made it clear that they are allowing peaceful protests to occur, but we are not going to tolerate it after violence occurs,” he said.
Outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Sunday, a group of around 100 protesters spent hours on California State Guard members and homeland security officers near the entrance to the Department of Homeland Security officers, calling them “Nazis,” denying orders on behalf of the building and urged them to defend the people.
At one point, Homeland Security officials approached one of the more vocal protesters, saying they “don’t want to repeat” Saturday’s violence, urging protesters to leave federal property and set the way for vehicles that need to be admitted. However, at about 1pm on Sunday, security guards with riot shields moved in front of Alameda’s law enforcement phalanx, charge at the protest crowd and shout “push” as people plunged into the people. They fired tear gas cans, sucking up the rena bullets into the street, leaving behind toxic clouds in the air.
Protesters are hurt near the 101 highway in a clash with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
It left a fierce crowd of protesters who were peaceful throughout the morning to the LAPD to contest.
After the National Guard Forces and Homeland Security Officers retreated to the loading dock, LAPD officials sailed between themselves and back and forth with protesters in Alameda for hours. Officers slowly forced hundreds of crowds onto Temple Street using batons, deadly launchers and tear gas, with limited success.
LAPD repeatedly issued dispersing instructions from helicopters and patrol cars speakers. Some members of the crowd were smashed with water bottles and glass bottles at officers, and the windshield of the department vehicle was hit by a projectile before being crushed.
One officer grabbed a sign from a protester standing near the skirmish line, smashed it in half and swinging the baton at the protesters’ feet. Another officer was seen by Times reporters repeatedly raising the launcher and targeting the head of the protesters.
At a particularly wild moment, the two on the bike headed towards the protest crowd, revving the engine and cheering. At one point, they approached the line of LAPD skirmishes and slid down.
Both were handcuffed and led, and their feet were dragged across the asphalt covered in crushed glass, using rubber bullets. LAPD later claimed that at least one motorcyclist had thrust into the officer.
Tensions spilled on Monday.
City workers repair broken windows on Spring Street at police headquarters.
(Robert Gautier/Los Angeles Times)
A line of riot device officers began gathering outside at police headquarters where city workers were found boarding a ground-level window. The surrounding streets were empty than usual as some government agencies were urging employees to work from home. Those who came to downtown hustled past their now-owned “ice” graffiti, so they kept their heads bowed.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday afternoon that Trump ordered the city another 2,000 National Guard troops, double the previous total. In response, the governor said he was working with other law enforcement agencies to “a spike” of 800 state and local law enforcement officials “to ensure the safety of our LA community.”
McDonnell said at a press conference that the department was “trying to balance dealing with public anxiety on the streets.” [while] At the same time, they are trying to protect peaceful protests. ”
Some community leaders were deeply unhappy with the police response.
Eddie Anderson, pastor of McCarty Memorial Church of Christ in Jefferson Park, claimed that LAPD is doing the job of protecting Trump’s immigration agents effectively.
“We asked them to choose a side. Are they going to choose a side of the federal government that is trying to tear their families apart?” Anderson said. “Donald Trump doesn’t want Angelenos to resort to violence to fight the federal government, as his plan is to show that LA is a lawless place.”
Times staff writers David Zanizer and Matthew Ohms contributed to this report.
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