Protesters On What It Was Like To Be One Of The 2,700 People Arrested By LAPD Last Week

I got downtown at around 5:30 p.m. and was marching through the streets of downtown with all of the protesters. There were hundreds of them. It was very peaceful. People were just chanting and holding up signs and repeating the names of George Floyd and the other victims of police brutality. It was completely peaceful until around 9:30pm.

When the police got there, it became chaotic. I saw a few instances of people who were completely unarmed and non-violent, shouting at police. LAPD officers pushed them away and shot people with rubber bullets.

We stopped in front of City Hall because the police had blocked us in. They surrounded us on all sides and wouldn't let us leave. They released a statement saying that they gave us the option to either leave and disperse, or be arrested. But in reality, we had been chanting for an hour to let us leave -- we were chanting the phrase "Let us leave, let us go home."

The police would not let us leave. They slowly closed in on us and demanded that we all sit down, in order to be peacefully arrested.

We asked what we were being arrested for and they wouldn't respond. They said that they gave us a warning but in reality, there was no warning. They arrested the few hundred of us that were there.

When we were arrested, we were taken one by one behind City Hall and told to sit down, very close to each other. No space for social distancing. They handcuffed us with zip ties and took our names. We sat there for over an hour.

They started blocking us in at 9:30 p.m. We were arrested starting at around 11:30 p.m. And by 1:00 a.m. we were put into Metro buses and taken into an LAPD building, where we were kind of just corralled.

It was a very, very large group, about five or six bus loads of people. We were trapped in a very small area with a lot of people and very slowly processed. Then we were given citations and let go.

Overall, I would say that LAPD's behavior and response was pretty hostile towards what I would consider peaceful protesters. The most violence that I saw were people screaming and shouting, which I do not think is cause for rubber bullets being shot and people being tear-gassed.

It was scary when I heard the police firing with loud bangs. I felt frustrated with the system.

I think it's important to know that the protesters are trying to be peaceful and that the violence is often instigated by the police. The few times I did see someone trying to spray paint a business or try to [loot] or something, there were a dozen or so protesters that would stop them or protect the business. I saw someone start to spray paint a food truck and about 15 protesters told him to stop.

I think it's important to know that the violence really escalates with the police's hand, and that's true all across the country.

At the beginning of the day, it was all full of love and so much solidarity and positivity. When we broke out of Pan Pacific Park and hit the streets, we had tens of thousands of people [with us].

People were honking from their cars to let us know they were there with us, in solidarity.

Then LAPD showed up.

Officers separated us, so that one group went in one direction and another group (of thousands of people) went in the other direction.

While we were marching, I turned on Kendrick Samson's Instagram livestream and I saw that there was a direct confrontation stand-off with the police happening nearby.

A bunch of us, specifically from People's City Council LA, tried to head back towards where Kendrick was [to help him]. We've had discussions before about what happens when black people are confronted by the police and we agreed that white people try to act as a buffer between the police and black and brown people.

So we headed back. On the other side of the block, we were met by the police. We could see Kendrick and the other group of protesters were being hit by the police with batons.

LAPD was being very violent, trying to corner and hit protesters. I specifically got a video of an officer instigating violence. He was [hitting] and pushing protesters with this baton.

The rest of LAPD officers followed his lead, and started pushing and hitting protesters. I was right there recording it and I was telling protesters "relax, relax, don't fight back."

At one point I got all the protesters to put their hands up to let the LAPD officers know we were not there to be violent. But it wasn't enough to stop the police. I turned to a few of my friends that were with me and said, "We need to get everyone out of here. We need to get everyone to dip out right now."

As I was announcing that we should leave on my megaphone, LAPD officers ran up to me, tackled me, dragged me across the ground and hit me with a baton. One of my friends, Albert, tried to grab me. They hit him with the baton twice. And I was arrested.

I was left in handcuffs on the side of the street for about three hours. They put us in the van to head to jail, where we waited for about two hours. I was in tight handcuffs the entire time.

I watched George Floyd's murder. And I saw a man beg for his life, while another man so casually took it away from him. All while three other people, who were supposed to be there to "protect," just let it happen.

I went out protesting because I spent the morning crying after seeing what was happening to other protesters around the country. Seeing a man tear-gassed with his pregnant girlfriend in the car (Denver) and a young college couple pulled out of their car and just terrorized (Atlanta). It's just like -- "You guys know we're watching you. And there's just still such a little regard for our lives."

I arrived around 4:30 p.m at the downtown protests. There were a lot of people of all races and a lot of young people - I think that probably stood out the most. I saw a lot of police officers in front of the LAPD building. They seemed pretty casual, just kind of standing there, chatting...not doing much.

At about 5:30 I ended up back in front of City Hall. At 5:56 p.m. the police made an announcement - they were like, "you guys have four minutes until curfew. If you're out here after curfew, you may get arrested." Everybody pretty much just booed.

The organizers were basically saying, "if you want to leave, this is the time to do it. But if you want to stay, 'we got this.'"

I decided to stay.

Others stayed, too. We chanted. We kneeled. We put our hands up. We put our fists up. It was all just very peaceful methods of protest.

At about 6:30, we started marching again, very peacefully, past the police station. People were leaning out of the buildings, cheering us on. Then towards the front of the protest, people kind of stopped. The police had formed a kind of blockade with their bodies.

At that point we realized we were trapped by the police, which wasn't a great feeling.

Our white allies really stepped up. They literally pulled their cars parallel to us and the police officers, saying things like "we're going to protect you, we have to protect you guys." I've never seen that from white people before. That was amazing.

We kept chanting and eventually we all went to one side to basically get out of the street and we sat down on the sidewalk. Somebody was like, "let's sit in.. just sit in and be peaceful." So we're sitting and being peaceful.

People were yelling from their apartment buildings at the police to let us go. Meanwhile, the police were like slowly inching in; their perimeter was getting closer and closer.

Then they announced that we were all under arrest for violating curfew.

I very carefully got my phone out of my pocket and called my boyfriend and just kind of spoke into the speaker like, "Hey, I'm getting arrested. I'll let you know what's happening." People were circulating the number to a lawyer; they encouraged us to chant it and write it down on our arms.

The police told us to put our hands behind our heads. We did, and they just came into the crowd and stood in front of us and said, "You're under arrest, if you choose to comply, stand up."

Everyone stood up because no one was trying to fight. They put zip ties on our wrists. I told the officer that mine was on my wrist bone, and he was like, "Don't worry, we'll take it off when you get over there." He pointed across the street. At that moment, I felt emotional because he was a person of color.

They were separating the men and women and processing us. They asked us questions like - "What's your name? How old are you? Where do you live? Have you ever been arrested?" They searched our bags. It seemed like almost every protester had their own police officer, arresting them, which I thought was weird. My arresting officer stayed with me the whole time. He held my purse.

After that we were put in a van and transported to the LAPD's Metropolitan Detention Center.

The LAPD officers weren't physically rough. But a good amount of them were trying to antagonize us by making comments about Trump, and telling people they had a chance of spreading coronavirus. They were the most antagonizing when we were in closed quarters with them in the van.

At the Detention Center, we sat and waited, for about 30 to 45 minutes, to get into the area where they were doing the bookings. They gave us a little piece of paper, then we gave it to the person at the door, and the person at the door gave it to another officer. That officer called the names from that stack of papers and then took us in to get processed. We finally got the zip ties off and were fingerprinted, given a citation and told to go home.

I absolutely don't think we should have been arrested. We were peacefully protesting. I don't think the curfew was legitimate, especially after a day or two of no looting. It was designed to keep us from our constitutional right to assemble.

It's especially bizarre to have the institution that we are protesting, keep us from protesting.

At the very least, we need accountability.