The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] conducted a raid in Paramount on Saturday morning, a day after federal agents raided several locations across Los Angeles.
Large groups of protesters quickly assembled near the sites of the raids on both Friday and Saturday. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that around 11 a.m. Saturday, deputies were dispatched to the 6400 block of Alondra Boulevard in Paramount on reports of a large group blocking traffic.
"As deputies arrived, it appeared that federal law enforcement officers were in the area, and that members of the public were gathering to protest," LASD said. "The sheriff’s department was not involved in any federal law enforcement operations or actions and responded solely for traffic and crowd control management."
As one of the links above covers, LA cops have used flash-bangs and tear gas against protesters. The local ABC, NBC and CBS stations also have some coverage. (So does the Los Angeles Times, but its articles tend to be paywalled.) Some of the "independent" coverage is just using the mainstream news feeds, but some activists are posting shorter videos.
The Trump administration is reportedly sending in 2,000 national guardsmen, and is threatening sending in marines as well, which presumably would violate the posse comitatus act, not that they care. The Trump administration has already shown its contempt for habeas corpus and due process in general. (Not to mention the social safety net, and the good of the non-billionaire general citizenry.)
The live feeds have been interesting. Earlier tonight, one of the gatherings (downtown LA) was apparently declared an "unlawful gathering." But while I was watching, the cops (presumably) were mostly blocking one road and not moving further (apart from one cop I saw shove a bicyclist, which seems to be SOP for cops at protests). The cops hadn't tried the classic box-them-in-and-then-charge-them-with-failure-to-disperse BS yet. (But that feed just ended.)
When the feeds are from mainstream media outlets, the Facebook threads have a healthy number of comments supporting the protesters, but also plenty of authoritarian and racist comments urging deportation and violence. So, the same stuff we've seen for decades (and centuries, and millennia...). The spontaneous turnout of protesters from multiple walks of life has been encouraging, though. Likewise, it's heartening to see protests in DC, NYC, Chicago and elsewhere. The local Los Angeles and California state politicians I've seen so far also oppose ICE's raids and the Trump administration's threats. We'll see how things develop.
1 comment:
I've been wondering when this would start to happen. The ICE raids are making entire communities feel under attack. Eventually people will try to fight back. But blocking traffic is just harassing other local people and does nothing to inconvenience ICE or the ruling class. It will become real resistance when they switch from that to actually trying to obstruct illegal arrests.
As for two thousand national guardsmen, do the people in charge of doing this have any idea how large the population of Hispanic and other ethnic neighborhoods in Los Angeles actually is? To say nothing of the other big cities where this is likely to happen? If they are going to treat entire large areas of major cities as enemy territory to be put under occupation, there aren't enough police and military in the whole country to do that.
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