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More Than 180 People Arrested In Second Night Of Anti-Trump Protests
A vandalized police cruiser and heightened tensions during Thursday night's protest in downtown Los Angeles. (Photo by Julia Wick/LAist)
Approximately 185 people were arrested Thursday night and early Friday morning at anti-Trump protests in downtown Los Angeles. This was the second night that anti-Trump unrest roiled the city—and the country. Last night's demonstration began with a rally at Los Angeles City Hall before protesters marched through downtown streets for roughly five hours.
Last night's demonstration was considerably smaller than the previous day's, but yielded far more arrests. According to City News Service, 30 people were arrested early Thursday morning during the first night of protests, when an estimated 3,000 demonstrators marched through downtown and eventually shut down the 101 freeway. City News Service reports that the number of protesters last night was about a third of Wednesday's 3,000 people.
LAPD Officer Norma Eisenman told LAist that one officer was injured during last night's demonstrations, but she said they were not releasing further information at this time. The officer will likely be released from the hospital Friday morning, according to the L.A. Times.
At around 9:30 p.m., a protester vandalized a police cruiser with spray paint, leading to a tense altercation as officers held beanbag shotguns and several protesters screamed anti-police expletives. Far more protesters, however, pleaded for calm, with an organizer on a megaphone yelling for people to back up, and loud chants of "peaceful protest, peaceful protest," rising from the crowd.
According to the LAPD, the majority of last night's arrests were for people being in the road, although there were also curfew arrests involving minors. There was at least one arrest made for vandalism charges.
Protesters left a sea of anti-Trump graffiti in their wake and vandalized at least one police cruiser, although Eisenman said the department did not yet have details on the extent of vandalism damage.
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