Demonstrations Dominate Southland; Garcetti And LAPD Union Clash

LOS ANGELES, CA —Demonstrations once again roiled the Southland with protests in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Dana Point, Downey and Santa Monica. On Friday night, more than a thousand protesters gathered in Downtown Los Angeles.

As demonstrators dominated the streets for a tenth straight day, another tempest is brewing at City Hall after Mayor Eric Garcetti announced plans to reverse a budget increase that was planned for the Los Angeles Police Department in the upcoming year. The move, along with comments from the mayor about police brutality have garnered praise from activists and reformers but put him on a collision course with the powerful police union.

The protests, sparked by the in-custody death of George Floyd in Minnesota and long-simmering anger over instances of police brutality, began as early as 8 a.m. in downtown Los Angeles and continued through 5 p.m. in Long Beach. By 11 a.m., hundreds of people were sitting on the sand on the beach stretching from the Venice Pier to the Santa Monica Pier in a peaceful protest in memory of George Floyd and in opposition to "the racial injustices that run deep in our country."

Friday morning, hundreds of people gathered in a line on the coastline sand from the Venice Pier to the Santa Monica Pier. The crowd chanted "I can't breathe," echoing the words that Floyd said repeatedly as his neck was being pinned to the ground by a police officer's knee for nearly nine minutes on Memorial Day.

The crowd eventually gathered in a march, and then fell silent for eight minutes and 46 seconds -- the time Floyd spent pinned to the ground.

Hundreds more people gathered again on the Spring Street steps of City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Protesters have gathered outside City Hall, and in front of the nearby Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, on an almost daily basis for the past week, becoming a common gathering point for anti-police-brutality protesters.

More protesters gathered in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Northridge and Santa Monica, all of them held peacefully with no reports of violence or confrontations with police.

In Lakewood, however, deputies used tear gas on a large group of protesters outside Lakewood City Hall sometime before 4 p.m. Sheriff's Lt. Michael Shaw said an unlawful assembly was declared due to some people in the group allegedly throwing objects at deputies.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Beginning early Friday morning in downtown Los Angeles, a drive-up protest was held, sponsored by Justice L.A. Organizers encouraged residents to drop off roses -- both real and paper -- at the Hall of Justice, 211 W. Temple St. The demonstration was held in memory of the first person to die from COVID- 19 in Los Angeles County jail, the eight people who died in sheriff's department custody in 2019, the 941 people who died at the hands of police in the county since 2000 and the 12,000 people in Los Angeles County jails.

Hundreds of people also took part in a march from Long Beach City College to Lakewood, where protesters collectively sat in a street, peacefully holding signs and listening to a series of speakers.

About 100 protesters gathered again in Santa Clarita early Friday afternoon, a smaller version of a peaceful gathering that took place in the same location Thursday.

Protests earlier in the week have resulted in hundreds of arrests, largely because of curfews that were imposed countywide and in individual cities. Those curfews, however, ended Thursday, one day after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit calling them a violation of protesters' First Amendment rights.

L.A. County Supervisors are set to vote Tuesday on a proposal to develop rules for protests, requiring social separation and other actions to protect demonstrators from the coronavirus. The motion by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl directs the Department of Public Health, in collaboration with the sheriff and all other local law enforcement agencies in the county, to develop protocols on measures such as issuing citations, transporting and detaining protesters, using face masks, deciding when to implement physical distancing and when to use tear gas.

"Peaceful assembly is a cherished American right and we need policies and procedures that protect both protesters and law enforcement personnel," Kuehl said. "During the protests in Los Angeles over the last few days, not all law enforcement personnel were equipped with personal protective equipment. Protesters were detained without face masks and were not always able to maintain physical distancing. We must develop health policies and practices that reduce the risk of infection when people are exercising their First Amendment rights."

On Thursday, LAPD Chief Michel Moore addressed a crowd of demonstrators, hundreds of whom gathered outside City Hall and in front of LAPD headquarters. At one point, Moore even dropped to one knee in a show of solidarity with the group.

"I welcome them here," Moore told NBC4. "I welcome them being peaceful and to the extent of someone looking at whether we bend a knee as to a matter of us seeing each other, we are here to see each other."

The mood among the department's rank and file has been tense as officers work long hours in a week that started off with looting and mayhem. It ended with the department facing budget cuts and harsh words between the mayor and the police union.

On Thursday, Garcetti spoke to a group of black community leaders about the anti-police-brutality protests that have rocked the city over the past week, and about his proposal to slash as much as $150 million in funding from the Los Angeles Police Department in favor of financing social-service programs in black neighborhoods. The event at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church was also attended by other elected officials, LAPD Chief Michel Moore and Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

As Garcetti was discussing the proposed police funding cut, he said, "We must lead. I got calls from mayors around the country, some of them saying, `I'm so excited,' the other ones saying, `What the hell did you do? Now I (have to) shift money.' That's exactly the point. It starts someplace, and we say we are going to be who we want to be or we're going to continue being the killers that we are."

The Los Angeles Police Protective League issued a statement Fridau saying, "Eric has apparently lost his damn mind," adding "we are deeply worried about his capacity to lead our city."

A spokesman for the mayor's office told the Los Angeles Times that Garcetti was not referring specifically to the LAPD, but to law enforcement in general across the country.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.