LA protesters rally

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

So-called “No Kings” protesters clash with police in Los Angeles.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Last weekend, thousands of protestors marched in cities across the country. They rallied against what they call authoritarian overreach by the federal government. The demonstrations began in Los Angeles several weeks ago. They continued downtown on Saturday, ending with a protest outside City Hall and a confrontation with police.

REICHARD: Supporters say the protests were peaceful. But video shows a different story: some demonstrators throwing water bottles and bricks at police. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher was there.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: On Saturday afternoon, thousands of people stood chanting and yelling outside City Hall in Los Angeles.

PROTESTOR: My sign says ICE belongs in my Horchata, not in my city.

This protester declined to give his name. He was there to speak up for relatives who are living in the U.S. illegally.

PROTESTOR: We're here for them, supporting them, hoping things could get better. And I mean, they pretty much lived here over half their lives, so this is pretty much already their country too.

Earlier this month, protesters in Los Angeles clashed with police and graffitied parts of downtown in response to arrests and raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. President Donald Trump ordered thousands of National Guard soldiers in to quell what he called an uprising. Local authorities also imposed an overnight curfew on the downtown area.

But protests continued throughout the week.

Most businesses in downtown Los Angeles boarded up or closed down for Saturday. Little to no looting took place. But the weekend before that, protesters vandalized the downtown area’s Little Tokyo neighborhood with graffiti.

AUDIO: We are the people! We are the people!

On Saturday, protesters took to the streets in other cities across the country, from Atlanta to Seattle to criticize Trump and his administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. In many of those cities, the protests remained nonviolent.

But in some places, things got heated. In Los Angeles, weekend demonstrations started with protesters holding signs in front of City Hall.

RIOS: We're not here to throw things. We're not here to fight.

Anthony Rios is a pastor at New City Church in Los Angeles. He has some immigrants in his congregation, and he was downtown waiting as protesters gathered.

RIOS: My father and mother came to came as immigrants. They came illegally to the United States, and like in the 80s. And they went through the process, and thank God, they got citizenship. But I know the struggle of immigrants. I've lived it.

Rios says part of that struggle was a general fear of “la migra,” slang for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

RIOS: These are stories that we would play as children. We will play hide and seek, like, “Oh, La Migra is coming! La Migra is coming!” But I never experienced that until today.

He says some people in his congregation are afraid to come to church.

RIOS: So right now there's a sense of fear in the Latino community, and I think that's the reason why we all want to stand up, because it's not a way to live.

During Saturday’s protest in deep blue Los Angeles, counter-protests were nowhere to be seen as protesters chanted and held their signs near City Hall.

Richard Buckley was one such protester. He held up a sign saying:

BUCKLEY: When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.

SCHUMACHER: Can you explain why you chose this sign for today?

BUCKLEY: Because I believe in it. I believe in the fact that Fascism is coming. I spent years working in Eastern Europe and Europe, and it comes when people think they're better than others.

Buckley explained that he himself is a Christian, and that he attends an Episcopal church in Los Angeles.

SCHUMACHER: How does your faith inform what you're doing here?

BUCKLEY: Because I believe in everybody, forgiveness, empathy, human rights, all those things are Christian based.

Another protester, who identified himself only as Fiest, held up a massive sign bearing the words of Leviticus 19:33.

SCHUMACHER: What made you choose this verse specifically?

FIEST: Specifically because it speaks about foreigners and how we should treat them? Yeah, there's other verses, so many other verses that talk about how we should treat our neighbors, how we should love our neighbors, but this one just stood out to me because it was very direct that we should treat them like natural-born citizens.

Several hours before curfew at 8 P.M., the tone shifted.

A couple of blocks away from City Hall, police began pushing protesters back up many of the streets they’d marched down. They shouted over a loudspeaker that protesters needed to fall back or face consequences.

Next came the consequences.

Police launched flashbangs and tear gas grenades into the streets. Many protestors left. Police shot pepper balls near the feet of the ones who didn’t. Some still refused to leave.

A few protesters threw water bottles and other objects at the police. Others kicked tear gas grenades back at the line of officers. Others shouted obscenities.

Slowly but surely, the protesters fell back and the crowd shrank in size until the police cleared everyone off the streets.

Pastor Rios says police were responsible for escalating the situation. Adding that when people are confronted with aggressive police actions, they tend to push back.

But Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell told NBC 4 Los Angeles that his officers were responding to several instigators.

McDONNELL: The day started out very peaceful. Went very well up until the point where officers started being attacked. When that happened, dispersal orders were given for people to break up and leave the area. Officers started taking rocks bottles and missiles at that point from a high ground position over by the LA mall at that point they deployed gas in order to disperse the group..

Officers arrested 35 people for violating curfew and a few others for failure to disperse and resisting arrest. McDonnell says overall, seven officers have been injured in the clashes.

He says about 30,000 people attended Saturday’s protest.

Rios said later that it was one of the largest protests he’d seen in the city—and he’s seen his fair share of protests. He also noted that looting was not a feature of the rally.

ANTHONY RIOS: I keep hearing this phrase that people are saying, LA is burning. LA is burning because of the protest that happened last week. But LA is not burning. LA is rising.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher in Los Angeles, California.

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