We gave them flowers; they sent in the horses.

It's taken me a bit longer than I expected to decompress from Saturday, so you'll pardon me if this one's coming out a bit later than most. There are a number of extremely good reportbacks and photo essays of last weekend's No Kings protests in Los Angeles, which I will link below.

I've struggled to key in on what, if anything, I could say about the entire day that hasn't been covered by my colleagues and other documenters across the city. The day started like any other day in Los Angeles: as I got off the train at Grand Park station, the platform filled with strangers ready to join the rally--dozens of strangers wearing costumes, carrying signs, hefting backpacks full of water and sunscreen onto their shoulders followed one another up the escalator and out into the sunshine.

The rally and march was a joyful affair--thousands marched in the streets near City Hall. As it concluded and hundreds began the walk back to their cars, groups of 10-15 hit the sidewalks and headed down the street to the Metropolitan Detention Center, where an auxiliary protest began to form.

It’s difficult to convey the tonal whiplash that has marked the daily protests outside the MDC, and even more difficult to reconcile what I witnessed during No Kings Day in Los Angeles last weekend. 

How can you adequately capture the ebbs and flows of a protest like this?--righteous anger broken by laughter, chants transformed by singing; a swirling, militant group of demonstrators opening up a dance floor in the middle of the street--police lines broken by batons and foam rounds fired into unarmed crowds.

An evening outside the MDC

A block party, line dancing, food from the fruteros and a taco truck, music, bubbles. Laughing and singing, chants commingled with a palpable anger at the LAPD, who protesters view as providing cover for the federal officers standing behind the fence at the MDC.

Since at least August, LAPD has used the block in front of the MDC as a "command center" on days when marches plan their routes past the entrance. For hours, they block off the entire stretch of Alameda, rerouting traffic and forcing protesters to congregate in the intersection on the other side of the caution tape.

I watched as a young woman handed a rose to an officer who accepted it without much fanfare as his coworker next to him stood stonefaced and defiant while a demonstrator heckled him relentlessly.

The same officers who accepted flowers from the assembled crowd later shoved demonstrators into the path of oncoming mounted police. What was a raucous, militant atmosphere became warped and twisted by a sudden swell of fear, chaos, and alarm at multiple points during the evening.

Barely an hour into the protest, a police cruiser drove his vehicle through a crowd of demonstrators on Commercial street. As the SUV gunned it through the angry crowd, I watched as fellow photographers and protesters jumped out of the way on the oncoming vehicle. One protester bounced off the side of the hood and hit the ground as the car wound its way through the rest of the crowd and under the caution tape.

Chaos erupted around us as the crowd tried to tend to the fallen protester. Yelling, screaming, shouts of righteous fury at the line of startled police officers on the other side of the caution tape.

Rattled by what I had just witnessed, I sat down on the sidewalk near the commotion and flipped through footage of the incident, trying to figure out why these two cops would drive through a crowd of hundreds like that. What was the reason? It makes no logical fucking sense to do that.

Those officers could have backed away from the crowd and made the three minute drive to the other side of the police cordon. Instead, they injured a protester and sent the crowd into a frenzy. Eventually, the protester was loaded into a waiting car and whisked away to seek medical attention, and lines formed again.

For hours, demonstrators sang together, ate together, danced with one another, shared water, music, masks. Friends met with friends, strangers shook hands.

Protesters took it upon themselves to direct traffic away from the intersection, taking shifts. A young man lounged on the back of his motorcycle, watching the traffic pass and taking pictures of the demonstrators chanting and laughing on the sidewalk.

At multiple points in the night, some officers were filmed wiping what appeared to be tears away from their eyes; I can’t pretend to know what goes through the rank-and-file’s minds as they man the caution tape of their “command center.” Boredom? Anger? Fear? Defiance in the face of an angry crowd? Perhaps they feel the tug of some deep seated thought that tells them they're on the wrong side of this. Perhaps they feel nothing.

For some officers, it's clear they get a kick out of regularly menacing a group of unarmed demonstrators outside the MDC. The usual suspects always find a way to muscle to the front of the line and raise their riot munitions weapons at chest or eye-level, sending demonstrators scattering as they sweep the crowd with the barrels of their neon green guns. For months, I've watched their irritation turn to full-blown fury as their superiors struggle to keep them in line. What a true lack of consequences and unchecked use of power does to a motherfucker--

Eventually, dispersal orders were called over the din of chants, yelling and music. Even as the police prepared to push, over a dozen demonstrators line-danced in the intersection, and individuals worked quickly to help fruteros clean up and get the hell outta dodge.

A woman rode through the back of the crowd on a bicycle yelling, "The horses are coming! They're coming on all sides!"

Within minutes, chaos erupted. At the front of the police cordon, social media video shows officers shooting individual protesters with less lethals from mere feet away, pushing the crowd back into the intersection. In one video, a young protester screams loudly after being struck by a foam round; another protester whisks her away in his arms.

From my vantage point up Aliso St., I watched as a line of mounted police made their way down the street toward the crowd. When they reached the intersection, they plowed into the main body of the crowd and split it right down the middle. Officers on the street ran through groups of people and began swinging batons at anyone who didn't move fast enough. One officer fired multiple percussion grenades at our ankles. One went off near my feet and deafened me in my left ear.

The chaos and violence continued. I, along with other members of the press, followed behind the mounted police and watched as they brought their truncheons down on people's heads from on high.

Eventually, the crowd that had been muscled down Commercial Street mostly dispersed--some protesters headed to the hospital with their heads split open, others regrouped and walked to Olvera Place. I jumped in a car with other press and connected with the remaining protesters, who were in the middle of a standoff with riot police at the Chevron on Cesar Chavez and Alameda streets.

There were hundreds of LAPD for a group of maybe 30 protesters. Mounted police, riot cops in full kit, lines of Suburbans choked off Alameda for nearly a block behind the skirmish line.

Again, the horses advanced, sending unarmed protesters scattering across the road and into the parking lot of the Chevron on the corner.

Officers peeled away from the main group and raised their weapons, shooting 40mm foam rounds at individuals in the crowd. At one point, I hid behind a dumpster near the back of the Chevron parking lot alongside a few other press as officers took pot shots at protesters behind us. We heard the unmistakable thunk of the rounds hitting their targets, and more yelling. As I stood on the corner, I watched an officer raise his weapon and shoot a bystander in the shoulder. All he had in his hands was a cell phone and a bag of snacks from the gas station. His head whipped around and he scrunched his neck, howling in pain. Just minutes before, he sat on the curb in front of the police line talking with us about his feelings on the night. He told us how he understood and supported the police, and how he understood and supported the protesters. "Why do they make us choose?" he said, gesturing to the cops on horses.

After another charge of the horses and a standoff near Phillipe The Original, where some protesters were allowed inside for refuge, LAPD retreated back near the MDC. They were followed by protesters and press all the way up the street--and the rear line of cops continued shooting less lethals at those that were following them. Some time later, they closed off the intersection at Alameda and Commercial again, and knocked a bicyclist off his bike after he attempted to rejoin the rest of the crowd. Eventually, a little under a dozen were arrested, including two minors.

Just after 10:30pm, I began my walk back to the train station. As I walked down Alameda toward Union Station, music drifted into the street from nearby Olvera Place and the lights from CHP cruisers blocking the 101 entrance bathed the block in blue and red. In the distance, the remaining protesters could be heard yelling periodically.

A CHP officer caught my eye as I crossed the street in front of him, "Did you get anything good tonight?" he asked, gesturing at my camera. The question seemed genuine, even curious, but it produced a wave of exhausted rage that I found difficult to swallow. If you mean watching unarmed community members and neighbors getting their shit kicked in by LAPD for the crime of giving a damn, then sure, I got some good shit.

"Some, I guess," I finally said, waving him away as I stepped into the crosswalk.

"Get home safe now," he called after me.

Sure man.

Other essays, posts, and reportbacks from No Kings, LA.

Sean Beckner-Carmitchel at the Ten Four published this great write-up, which asks critical questions about the Mayor's stubborn silence on the conduct of her officers:

Protests After No Kings Greeted By Horses Protecting Federal Detention Facility

It’s her LAPD. She has said nothing. She has been more absent on this issue than when she was out of the country during the fires.” -Adam Rose

The LA Ten Four

Here's a few good IG posts from colleagues:

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A post shared by carrie schreck (@rehabforcandy)

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A post shared by Ghawam Kouchaki (@ghawam.kouchaki)

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A post shared by Lexis-Olivier Ray (@shoton35mm)

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A post shared by J.W. Hendricks (@j.w.hendricks)

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A post shared by Jon C. (@jecc1183)

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A post shared by Chelsea Lauren | Photographer (@chelsealaurenla)

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