Protesters or agitators: Who is driving chaos at L.A. demonstrations?

The crowd near the town hall of Los Angeles had reached a uncomfortable relaxation on Sunday evening with a line of sinister police.

The LAPD officers seized “less deadly” riots, which pull foam bullets that leave red Welts and ugly bruises on anyone they have struck. Protesters have massaged in downtown Los Angeles for the third consecutive day. Some were there to protest against federal immigration of sweeping through the county – others seemed to wreak havoc.

Several young men have slipped through the crowd, leaned and hid something in their hands. They reached the front line and launched eggs on the officers, who fired in the crowd on the run with rifles.

Jonas March, who turned the demonstrations as an independent journalist, fell to the ground and tried to walk in the army.

“As soon as I got up, they pulled me in the A -,” said the 21 -year -old.

The police chief Jim McDonnell made a distinction between the demonstrators and the masked “anarchists” who, he said, were determined to exploit the state of the troubles to vandalize the goods and attack the police.

“When I look at people who make violence, it is not the people we see here in the day who legitimately exercise their rights to the 1st amendment,” said McDonnell on Sunday. “These are people who are all hooded – they have a hooded sweatshirt, they have face masks.”

“These are people who do this all the time,” he said. “They get out of it with everything they can. Go from a situation of civil disorders to another, frequently using even or similar tactics. And they are connected. ”

A person is launching a large rock at the CHP officers stationed on Highway 101.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The violence and the general material damage during demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles have diverted public attention from the objective of the demonstrations – large -scale immigration sweeping in cities with Latin predominance such as Paramount, Huntington Park and Whittier.

Instead, the troubles drew attention to a narrow slice of the region – the civic nucleus of Los Angeles – where the demonstrations have devoted themselves to clashes with the police and chaos chaos scenes: Waymo Taxis. Degraded vandals of city buildings with anti-political graffiti. Masked men launching pieces of concrete among patrol officers of the Californian motorway who kept demonstrators outside the 101 motorway.

CHP officers on highway 101.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

McDonnell said that some agitators have broken the concrete blocks with hammers to create projectiles to launch the police, and others have launched “commercial quality fireworks” among officers.

“It can kill you,” he said.

The LAPD arrested 50 people during the weekend. Captain Raul Jvel, who supervised the ministry’s response to demonstrations, said that arrested people included a man accused of hitting a motorcycle in a line of officers and another suspect who would have launched a Molotov cocktail.

California National Guard troops look at the demonstrators face the police in downtown Los Angeles.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

McDonnell said investigators will travel the video of the police from the police and the images published on social networks to identify more suspects.

“The number of arrests that we have made pale in relation to the number of arrests that will be made,” he said.

The representatives of the city prosecutor of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Prosecutor’s Office could not immediately say if cases were under examination for prosecution. Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said that those who “launch concrete blocks, light fire vehicles destroy property and agents of the aggression forces” will be charged.

On Sunday, the LAPD responded to a chaotic scene that started when the demonstrators clashed by the troops of the National Guard and the officers of the Ministry of Internal Security outside the metropolitan detention center.

Around 1 p.m., a phalanx of troops from the National Guard loaded the crowd, shouting “growing” while they were driving people with riot shields. Federal troops and officers used pepper balls, tear gas cans as well as flash-bang grenades and smoke to break the crowd.

No one in the crowd had been violent towards federal deployment to this point. The purpose of overvoltage seemed to be to clean the space for a convoy to approach federal vehicles.

The police from the Ministry of Internal Security had asked demonstrators to keep the vehicle roads clear earlier in the morning, but their orders on a speaker were often drowned by the songs of the demonstrators. They offered no warning before loading the crowd.

California National Guard troops are custody of the metropolitan detention center.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Some in the crowd launched bottles and fireworks at the LAPD. Two people led motorcycles at the front of the crowd, turning their engines and attracting the cheers of passers -by. Police accused them of having struck the skirmish line, and the motorcycles could be seen falling on their side later. The drivers were taken by the police, their feet dragging on the asphalt bordered with broken glass and passed rubber bullets.

On the other side of 101, the Vandals set fire to a row of Waymos. Acre smoke has died out of autonomous taxis while people broke their windows with roller boards. Others posed for photographs standing on the roofs of burning white SUVs.

After the CHP officers pushed the demonstrators of Highway 101, people carrying masks threw pieces of concrete – and even some electric scooters – to officers, who were sheltered under a higher passage. A piece of concrete struck a CHP car, attracting the cheers of the crowd.

The Los Angeles police shoot tear gas as they advance on demonstrators who have formed a makeshift barricade.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Closer to the town hall, the LAPD pushed the demonstrators to Gloria Molina Grand Park, where some in the crowd snatched pink park benches from their concrete frames and stacked them in a makeshift barricade in the middle of Spring Street.

The crowd, which included a Catholic priest carrying her dresses and a woman with a feathered hairstyle, molded behind the barricades until the LAPD officers postponed them, swinging long wooden bats to several people who refused to retreat. Online video traffic has shown that a woman was trampled on.

The crowd moved south on Broadway, where the LAPD said that companies said it would have been piloted around 11 p.m. video recorded by an ABC7 helicopter showed people wearing masks and fleece in hooded penetrating in a shoe store.

McDonnell said that the scenes of anarchy disgusted it and “every good person in this city”.

Before all chaos bursts on Sunday, Julie Solis walked along Alameda Street holding a Californian flag, warning the demonstrators not to adopt the type of behavior that followed later during the day.

Solis, 50, said that she thought that the National Guard was only deployed to provoke an answer that would justify a new assault on federal police.

“They want arrests. They want to see us fail, ”she said. “We must be peaceful. We must be eloquent. “