More than 70 protesters were arrested Saturday evening after officers fired tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd, leaving at least one teenager with an eye wound and another with skin burns, according to protesters and police.
The confrontation outside the federal Metropolitan Detention Center followed hours of peaceful “No Kings” demonstrations in the city of Los Angeles and throughout the county. As the rally was ending in the afternoon, the crowd gathered at the federal building ignored orders to disperse, officials said.
Authorities forcibly removed a Los Angeles Times reporter and other journalists from the area, saying they were about to make “mass arrests.” The protesters who remained stood in a line outside the building as officers tied their hands behind their backs and loaded them into a van. One was dressed as Lady Liberty and had a chain around her waist as part of her costume.
Later in the evening, police officers, some of them on horseback, moved into a small group of protesters around the corner from the federal detention facility. Arrests had slowed by 9 p.m.
A man on horseback is chased by LAPD officers on Temple Street following the “No Kings” protest on Saturday.
(Scott Strazzante/For The Times)
First Assistant US Atty. Bill Essaly posted on Twitter that federal agents have video footage of people attacking officers.
“To those who were breaking concrete blocks and throwing them at our officers, we have your videos. We will find you and arrest you too. You have been warned,” he wrote.
Earlier, a woman who declined to be named but identified herself as a doctor and said she had treated the teenager who was taken to hospital with an eye injury and had also treated other people.
“They treated us cruelly,” he said. He also said that he did not hear any warning. “We were just protesting, there was no aggression. They just started firing into the crowd.”
After the LAPD issued a tactical alert around 5 p.m., officers – some with gas masks and almost all wearing face shields – crowded the area, where the air was thick with gas.
Organizers said millions of people attended ‘No Kings’ rallies in all 50 states, expressing anger over the direction of the country, including deadly ICE shootings and troops sent to the Middle East.
Times staff writer Richard Vinton contributed to this report.
