Following backlash, LA officials say they won’t criminally charge or fine peaceful protesters
After facing backlash over how Los Angeles Police Department officials treated protesters during the first week of demonstrations following George Floyd’s death, city officials on Monday said they will not prosecute those arrested for curfew violations and failure to disperse.
“Our Office will be creating opportunities for violators to participate in an exchange of ideas and perspectives — as well as a discussion of tangible steps that can be taken by individuals, communities, law enforcement and our office — to address issues relevant to these protests,” City Attorney Mike Feuer’s office said in a news release.
The Los Angeles Times first reported the news Sunday.
The news comes after tension between Angelenos and police officials escalated amid protests for Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis police. Video of his death sparked protests nationwide, including in areas across LA, with demonstrators demanding justice for Floyd and an end to police brutality.
While last week’s demonstrations were largely peaceful, some organizations and city leaders have flagged concerning reports about previous protests being disrupted by police.
LA Councilman Mike Bonin sent a letter to Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore on Saturday expressing his concern over various allegations of police brutality reported last weekend by the LA Times and his constituents.
“I am alarmed by the growing number of disturbing accounts and images of peaceful protesters being assaulted with plastic bullets, tasers, batons, physical force, and of reports that protestors were detained unnecessarily by law enforcement during last weekend’s George Floyd solidarity protests,” Bonin wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided to CNN by his spokesman.
“I have spent several hours reading accounts and watching videos of the experiences of demonstrators,” he wrote. “Not just the accounts of longtime activists, but of newly engaged Angelenos who took to the streets. Not in other cities, but right here in our own Los Angeles.”
Bonin called on Moore to investigate “not just individual instances, but of underlying policies and of strategic decisions by the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies.”
When asked by CNN for comment regarding Bonin’s letter on Sunday, a spokesman for the LAPD said, “We don’t have a statement we’re putting out on that.”
Bonin’s letter came one day after the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and the Los Angeles Community Action Network filed a lawsuit against the city over how LA police have handled protests.
“Over the course of approximately a week, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested more than 2,600 individuals engaged in peaceful protest,” according to the suit obtained by CNN. “This was not the first time that the LAPD has engaged in these tactics. Over the course of the last several decades, the Defendant City has been sued repeatedly for many of the same tactics on display the past week, including kettling protestors before declaring an unlawful assembly, excessive force with batons and rubber bullets, and prolonged handcuffing and improper conditions of confinement for arrestees.”
LAPD Public Information Director Josh Rubenstein told CNN in an email statement Monday that “the Los Angeles Police Department is not able to comment on pending litigation.”
“However, regarding any mistreatment, violations of Department policy, or excessive use of force; we are reviewing numerous videos, and personal accounts of what happened,” he said. “We will investigate thoroughly every allegation, as the treatment of protestors speaks to the heart of the very subject of these demonstrations.”
The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office has no comment regarding the suit, spokesman Rob Wilcox told CNN.
Videos of some encounters between demonstrators and LAPD officials have surfaced online and circulated widely on various social media platforms. Saturday, the LAPD issued a statement to CNN about these viral videos.
“Protests, marches and demonstrations over the last several days have been often dynamic and at times dangerous situations for both officers and demonstrators,” LAPD said in its email. “A number of these gatherings have unfortunately devolved into chaos with rocks, bottles, and other projectiles being launched at police officers, who have sustained injuries that range from cuts and bruises to a fractured skull.”
The statement goes on to note that the LAPD is “aware of individuals who have posted videos online and on social media depicting encounters with the police, that they believe constitutes excessive force or misconduct during these demonstrations.” They said they will “investigate each instance thoroughly, and hold any officer who violates department policy accountable.”
The LA City Attorney’s Office said it will develop new programs focused on the relationship between the community and law enforcement and plans to implement them later this summer.
In the city attorney office’s news release, Moore issued a statement backing “this approach to criminal justice reform,” adding that he will “work closely with the City Attorney’s Office to ensure it is successful.”
“Resolving these violations through alternative methods is a productive and appropriate way to address these offenses, and will have lasting positive effects on our community,” Moore said in the statement.
Arrests amid peaceful protests
Los Angeles was among the 40 cities nationwide that imposed a curfew after looting occurred during demonstrations the weekend of May 30.
In Santa Monica on May 31, a protest became violent, with police firing rubber bullets and other objects at protesters in an effort to get them to disperse.
Protesters also threw objects, including slabs of concrete, at police. Stores were also looted.
Elsewhere in LA, rubber bullets were also used, some demonstrators said. “Insecure” actor Kendrick Sampson took to social media to share that he was shot seven times with rubber bullets by police during a protest May 30.
“He pointed the gun DIRECTLY AT ME,” Sampson wrote on Twitter, linking to a news report about his experience. “I actually got hit 7 times with rubber bullets and many with batons. My boy has stitches.”
The Los Angeles Police Department did not respond to CNN’s previous request for comment regarding Sampson’s social media posts.
Last week, graphic photos that circulated online showed a man in a wheelchair with a bloodied face, an incident Bonin cited in both his letter and tweets. The man in the image is also referenced in the lawsuit over the city’s handling of the protests, where he is identified as Cincinatti.
“Cincinatti is disabled and in a wheelchair,” the suit states. “He pleaded with police not to use force on him before being shot in the face. But he was not the only disabled person in a wheelchair to be struck in the face by a rubber bullet as the LAPD enforced curfew laws and other misdemeanors in the last week.”
In the lawsuit filed Friday, one demonstrator alleged that he was detained and handcuffed tightly behind his back for about four hours, experiencing numbness, bruising and soreness.
The lawsuit also alleges that some unhoused people “had no place they could go to avoid violating the curfew,” yet they were “subjected to excessive force,” arrested, “tightly handcuffed” and taken on buses to Jackie Robinson Stadium on the Veterans Affairs property in West Los Angeles.
When asked about the photo of the man in the wheelchair and allegations of excessive force for those detained, a spokesperson for the LAPD told CNN over the phone: “We’re not making statements on any of those to the fact that they’re investigations now and we cannot comment on them.”
‘We want peace’
During a news conference last Monday, Moore said those protesting by committing criminal acts were not mourning Floyd.
“We didn’t have people mourning the death of this man, George Floyd — we had people capitalizing,” the police chief said June 1. “His death is on their hands as much as it is those officers.”
Moore apologized on Twitter, but many had already expressed their outrage over his comments in replies to the video which was posted on Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Twitter page.
“I misspoke when making a statement about those engaging in violent acts following the murder of George Floyd,” he wrote.
Some demonstrators last week said they wanted “peace” with police.
“We want peace,” Joseph Haynes told CNN on June 2. “We’re trying to tell the police, all over the country, if you just march with us you’re showing that you’re not standing in solidarity for a system that has oppressed people for hundreds of years.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) branch in Southern California filed a lawsuit last week on behalf of the Black Lives Matter organization over the curfews in Los Angeles city and county, as well as San Bernardino.
“The curfews’ extraordinary suppression of all political protest in the evening hours plainly violates the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and their blanket restrictions on movement outside working hours violate the Constitution’s protection of freedom of movement,” the ACLU said in a news release issued June 3.
Garcetti, Moore and Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva are among the defendants listed in that suit.
LA County and the city of LA had separate curfews. Both LA County and the Los Angeles mayor lifted the curfew last Thursday. A sheriff’s spokesperson told CNN affiliate CBSLA that the decision to lift curfew was not linked to the ACLU lawsuit.
Mayor and police chief garner backlash
As people continue to voice their concerns over the police department’s treatment of protesters, Garcetti has also become the center of backlash.
Garcetti is the son of former Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti, who was elected in the aftermath of riots sparked by the 1992 acquittal of four officers charged in the 1991 Rodney King beating. The Rev. Al Sharpton said in 2012 that King’s beating “made America focus on the presence of profiling and police misconduct.”
Now the younger Garcetti is a leader amid a similarly tense time for the city.
In an interview with CNN’s Ana Cabrera on May 30, Garcetti said there are “absolutely” lessons to be learned from his father’s experiences during that time.
“What we learned from that is that we have to actually start to listen to each other,” he said. “Law enforcement has to hear the pain of African American men and communities of color … but secondly, we have to humanize who those people behind the badge are, too.”
Last Tuesday, on June 2, protesters gathered outside Garcetti’s home.
A small group of protesters remained there hours after curfew, sitting on the ground with their hands up together, chanting “peaceful protest,” CNN reported. Police moved in to arrest some of those still gathered.
Many Angelenos frustrated by the police department, specifically Moore, dialed in to a Zoom conference hosted by the Los Angeles Police Commission on June 2, the same day protesters rallied outside of Garcetti’s home.
“Listen to the people of Los Angeles, they’re not going to take it anymore,” one caller said to Moore. “You are all guilty if you don’t figure this out. … Send the National Guard home. We don’t need protection, we need protection from you.”
“Chief Moore is morally obligated to resign,” another caller said. “All your cute Zoom background photos of the city won’t trick us into thinking you care about anyone but yourselves and what’s in your pockets.”
“Black lives matter, act like it. Happy Tuesday,” the same caller said in his remarks, a clip of which has garnered more than 170,000 retweets on Twitter.
The meeting lasted about seven hours.
Angelenos continue to protest
Sunday marked nearly two weeks of protests across the US, including in multiple areas of Los Angeles. About 20,000 people showed up to one demonstration in Hollywood, according to CNN affiliate KTLA.
Some protesters in LA said the mood felt more peaceful this weekend.
Naomi Trantu, a Los Angeles resident, told CNN on Friday that she has seen less of a police presence since the protests began.
In earlier days, “the police were agitated,” she said. “Every day, there’s been fewer police. I think the more peaceful energy is because of that. There’s been no shift in intention. Empowerment was always there.”
Garcetti on Sunday afternoon announced the California National Guard units will leave the city “this evening.”
He wrote in a tweet: “I’m proud L.A. residents are leading a peaceful and powerful movement to build a fair, just, and equitable city.”
Garcetti also agreed Wednesday to slash between $100 million and $150 million from the proposed funding for the LAPD after Californians decried a proposal to increase its budget to $1.86 billion.
The People’s Budget LA Coalition called Garcetti’s pledge “a start,” noting that cutting $150 million from LAPD would “still leave LAPD with 51% of the city’s unrestricted revenues.”
“We’re encouraged to see that our constant action has pushed Mayor Garcetti and City Council to back up their nice words with some actual action, however small, that directly confronts the racist police state that is the City of Los Angeles,” said Melina Abdullah, one of the leaders of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, in a statement.
“But they need to go much further.”
