California law enforcement preparing for Inauguration Day protests

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    LOS ANGELES, CA (KABC) — The Los Angeles Police Department put the word out on Friday asking City Hall employees to work from home next week to “ensure their safety and allow LAPD and other law enforcement to focus on safety concerns.”

And because of threats of violence, the President of the Los Angeles City Council canceled next Wednesday’s meeting.

Hal Kempfer is a security expert with ABC7 Eyewitness News. Los Angeles City Hall and LAPD headquarters are high-profile targets for protesters, but Kempfer points out there are others in Southern California.

“I’m in Long Beach. I can see them going down to our City Hall and potentially trying to do something as well. But with that said, it goes back to what are the goals and objectives of the groups,” said Kempfer.

Law enforcement up and down the state are ramping up security around government buildings, the offices of politicians and other high-profile targets. In Sacramento, the California Highway Patrol is leading the effort to secure the state capitol.

Law enforcement doesn’t want anything close to what happened in the nation’s capitol on Jan. 6 to happen in California.
“Along with the CHP and Office of Emergency Services, I’ve activated the California National Guard to support the CHP to enhance security with an initial deployment of up to 1,000 guard members to protect critical state critical infrastructure in and around the state capitol,” Gov. Newsom said on Thursday.

Kempfer points out it’ll be local and state law enforcement that’ll be upfront guarding high-profile targets and keeping protestors away.

“Generally speaking, when you’re dealing with the public, you want a law enforcement officer, rather than a military person who hasn’t had experience with these types of incidents before,” Kempfer said.

The advice from our security expert for the general public is this: If you don’t have to be anywhere on Inauguration Day, the best thing to do is to stay home.

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