Protesters try to attack driver after truck speeds through Iran demonstration in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES– Los Angeles police responded Sunday after someone drove a U-Haul truck into a street crowded with demonstrators demonstrating in support of the Iranian people, causing demonstrators to swerve out of the way and then run after the speeding vehicle in an attempt to attack the driver.
The U-Haul truck, which had its window and side mirrors smashed, was stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars. ABC7 helicopter footage showed police holding the crowd at bay as protesters swarmed the truck, throwing punches at the driver and ramming flagpoles through the driver’s side window.
The driver, a man who has not been identified, was taken into custody “pending further investigation,” police said in a statement Sunday evening.
The police statement said one person was struck by the truck but no one was seriously injured. Two people were evaluated by paramedics and both refused treatment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
A banner hanging from the truck read “No Shah. No regime. United States: Don’t repeat 1953. No mullah,” an apparent reference to the U.S.-backed coup that year that toppled Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
The August 1953 coup stemmed from U.S. fears over the Soviet Union’s growing desire for a piece of Iran as communists were agitating in the country. The ground had been laid in part by the British, who wanted to regain access to the Iranian oil industry, previously nationalized by Mossadegh.
The coup toppled Mossadegh and consolidated the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It also lit the fuse for the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which saw the seriously ill Shah flee Iran and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini usher in the theocracy that still rules the country.
A huge crowd of demonstrators, some waving the flag of Iran before the Islamic revolution, gathered Sunday afternoon along Veteran Avenue in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles to protest against Iran’s theocracy. Police eventually issued a dispersal order, and as of 5 p.m., only about 100 protesters were still in the area, ABC7 reported.
Activists say Iran’s nationwide crackdown on protests has killed more than 530 people. Protesters took to the streets of Tehran, Iran’s capital, and its second-largest city on Sunday.
Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran.
