Although the “No Kings” demonstration was mostly peaceful, 38 protesters were taken into custody by police on Saturday night, primarily for breaking the downtown curfew.
The Los Angeles Police Department reports that 35 of the more than three dozen individuals arrested broke curfew, one failed to disperse, one resisted arrest, and one resisted, impeded, or delayed an officer.
Since June 7, when ICE protestors started fighting with police in downtown Los Angeles, the LAPD has detained 561 people. Twelve officers have been hurt during the city’s protests in the past week.
The goal of the countrywide “No Kings Day of Defiance” protests was to block the military parade that was held to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, which also happened to be President Trump’s birthday.
According to the event’s organizers, 5 million people took part in protests in over 2,100 places nationwide.
Many took advantage of the opportunity to criticize the immigration operations taking place in Southern California, even though they were organized before to the ICE protests in Los Angeles.
Many activists remained far into the afternoon, even though the downtown event was supposed to go from 9:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
“Today, over 200,000 people gathered peacefully in downtown Los Angeles to protest the egregious overreach of this administration,” No Kings spokesperson Hunter Dunn stated. “While the official No Kings event concluded earlier in the day, many remained in the streets to continue their nonviolent dissent.”
Law enforcement ordered demonstrators to leave the area after “people in the crowd are throwing rocks, bricks, bottles and other objects,” according to the Los Angeles Police Department, even though the rally remained peaceful throughout the day.
The march went past the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building at approximately 3:50 p.m.
“They came in super, super hard and aggressive, and that’s what created all of this,” according to one protester. “No warning. They just masked up … It’s upsetting because how are people supposed to feel like their voices are being heard when they’re being violently put down by the state itself.”
Smoke and flashbangs were used by police and L.A. County Sheriff’s officers to disperse the crowd from the federal building. Officers are seen detaining multiple individuals in aerial footage.
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“The only time our deputy sheriffs are utilizing that less-lethal weapon is when they are being attacked or others are being attacked,” L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna stated on Saturday night. “They’re not just using it indiscriminately. Sometimes the videos don’t show it, but sometimes you have individuals launching the craziest things at them, from pyrotechnics to Molotov cocktails.”
The mob was seen hurling tear gas canisters back at police in a video taken inside L.A. City Hall.
“I look at today and I’m very disappointed,” L.A. Police Chief Jim McDonnell stated. “We started out with a very peaceful protest earlier in the day. About mid-afternoon or so, then it got violent when you had the agitators in the group start assaulting officers with missiles, rocks, bottles, fireworks, and they had a high-ground position on the officers.”
