LAPD

Free Speech Ends Here: What I Saw During The LAPD Crackdown

June 12, 2025 Jalyssa Dugrot, MintPress News. Resist! California, Freedom of Speech, ICE, Immigrant Rights, LAPD, Los Angeles, Police

On the morning of June 10, 2025, I made the decision to travel to Los Angeles to cover the underreported protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). By night, I was already en route to the airport. For days, the world watched as California burned. Cars set ablaze, crowds being flash-banged, rubber bullets flying, smoke in the air as protesters and reporters run for cover, gasping for air and hurrying to put their masks on. The scenes on the ground gripped us all. Just as striking were the headlines: “RIOTERS BURN LA,” “VIOLENT PROTESTERS IN LA,” and it made me wonder, when did free speech become synonymous with violence?

The Los Angeles Protests Are An Act Of Self-Defense

June 11, 2025 Melissa Gira Grant, Portside. Strategize! California, Community Defense, ICE, Immigrant Rights, LAPD, Los Angeles, Police

Early Sunday evening in Los Angeles, as the city was under siege by federal anti-immigration forces, aided by local law enforcement, Mayor Karen Bass was holding a press conference. Out in the streets, a reporter noted, it appeared that the Los Angeles Police Department was “cooperating” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “using flashbangs and less-lethal munitions” to push people engaged in “peaceful protest” away from a federal building being used as an ICE detention center. The reporter asked if Mayor Bass would comment on this cooperation, which is against city policy.

The Surveillance And Policing Of Looted Land

January 27, 2022 Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, Black Agenda Report. Resist! LAPD, Los Angeles, Police, Surveillance

The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition is a community group rooted in the Skid Row community on Tongva/Gabrielino land, stolen territory known as Los Angeles. Over the past decade, we have been working to build power to abolish LAPD surveillance. This report grew out of that organizing and examines the relationships of policing and surveillance to displacement, gentrification, and real estate development. We study those relationships with a focus on the process that has always bound policing and capitalism together: colonization. We often hear that police are an occupying army in our communities. Throughout the history of imperialism and colonization, occupying forces have used surveillance to monitor and contain populations they deem threatening, all for the purpose of maintaining their violent rule.

LAPD Commission Approves Drone Pilot Program Amid Protest

October 19, 2017 Wes Woods and Brenda Gazzar, www.dailynews.com Resist! Drones, LAPD, Police, Protests

By Wes Woods and Brenda Gazzar for Los Angeles Daily News - The civilian Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday approved a one-year pilot program for the use of drones by police in certain situations, despite significant concerns voiced by the public. The program was approved by a 3-1 vote after commissioners considered guidelines and took public comment. Steve Soboroff, president of the commission, said before his vote the issue wasn’t about drones. “The issue is a universal distrust and categorical distrust of the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department,” said Soboroff, shouting above the crowd. “And I have a general trust and respect for the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department, and I will vote for this policy.” Soboroff’s words came after commissioner Cynthia McClain-Hill said she was opposed to the “difficult” issue. “I am not satisfied that this department has done what it should do and needs to do in order to build the trust that is required to support the implementation of this technology,” McClain-Hill said. Meanwhile, commissioner Shane Murphy Goldsmith did not attend the meeting for reasons unclear. Many in attendance voiced their opposition to the program, and loud chants of “Shame on you!” broke out following the decision while four people were detained and issued citations. Afterward, some people in the audience briefly blocked Main Street and 1st Street outside of the meeting to protest of the decision.

LAPD Officer Receives Community Service After Beating Handcuffed Man Unconscious

August 13, 2016 Andrew Emett, www.nationofchange.org Educate! LAPD, police brutality

By Andrew Emett for Nation of Change - Captured on video beating an apprehended suspect unconscious, an LAPD officer will avoid serving any jail time after prosecutors agreed to community service and probation instead. Although a Los Angeles police official described the unprovoked assault as “horrific,” the LAPD and District Attorney’s office continue to suppress the footage from the public. Shortly after noon on October 16, 2014, Clinton Alford Jr. was riding his bicycle home in South Los Angeles when a car pulled up behind him with the driver ordering him to stop.

Newsletter: Justice Takes A Lifetime

March 19, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter #BlackLivesMatter, Baltimore, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Chicago, Cleveland, Desegregation, Detroit, Donald Trump, Environmental Justice, Ferguson, Flint, Freddie Gray, Hillary Clinton, Incinerators, Inequality, Internet, Jeb Bush, Jim Crow, LAPD, Laquan McDonald, Los Angeles, Mass Incarceration, North Carolina, Prison Labor, Prisons, Privatization, Slavery, Student Activism, Tamir Rice, Wall Street, Water

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The #BlackLivesMatter movement continues to grow its power and have notable victories, but 600 hundred years of racial oppression, older than the nation itself, will not be rooted out quickly. The movement had a series of electoral and other victories this week. These victories for #BLM and their supporters are notable but problems still persist and the movement must continue to grow and get stronger. There are no quick fixes to a country that is crippled by its history of racism. We must all recognize that the work we are doing for racial, economic and environmental justice requires us to be persistent and uncompromising. achieve the transformational justice we seek will last our lifetimes – a marathon and not a sprint.

Newark’s New Disciplinary Board Could Control And Limit Police

September 16, 2015 Daniel Ross, www.yesmagazine.org Create! LAPD, mental health, police brutality

By Daniel Ross in Yes! Magazine - Just over a year ago, Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old mentally ill black man, was shot and killed by two LAPD officers in South Los Angeles. Ford was unarmed, though the officers involved insist that a struggle had occurred between one of the officers and Ford prior to the shooting. After a lengthy investigation, the Los Angeles Police Commission—a five-member civilian review board that oversees the LAPD—determinedin June of this year that one of the officers was wrong to draw his weapon and open fire. But because LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has final say over disciplinary matters, it is possible that he could refrain from meting out any punishment to the officers involved—something that has happened multiple times before. These situations have led to heated disagreementsbetween Beck and the Commission about his lack of punitive action in cases where the board has determined wrongdoing by an officer.

Watts: Remember What They Built, Not What They Burned

August 15, 2015 Robin D. G. Kelley, www.latimes.com Educate! History, LAPD, police brutality, Racial Justice

By Robin D. G. Kelley in LA Times - As we mark 50 years since the Watts riots, expect endless newsreel footage of buildings aflame and National Guard units occupying Central Avenue, experts rattling off gruesome statistics, eyewitness accounts of that stifling hot night on Aug. 11, 1965, when Marquette Frye's drunk driving arrest became the flashpoint for one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in U.S. history. But a focus on violence and looting reduces the people of Watts to “rioters” rather than residents confronting social and economic catastrophe. What they burned is less important than what they built, both before and after the insurrection. By 1965, Watts faced double-digit unemployment, rampant poverty and a shortage of livable housing. Restrictive covenants, real estate agents, lending institutions and white civic associations conspired to maintain racial segregation.

LAPD Pressed Gun To Chest & Shot Unarmed Homeless Man

July 31, 2015 Jeff Sharlet, www.gq.com Educate! Africa, LAPD, police brutality, Racial Justice

By Jeff Sharlet un GQ - Five months after the March 1 Los Angeles police killing of an unarmed black man named Charly "Africa" Keunang—a story I reported in-depth for the July issue of GQ—the Los Angeles coroner has finally released the results of its autopsy. They are profoundly disturbing. Two of the six bullets that killed Charly entered his body through what are called "contact gunshot wounds"—which means the muzzle of the officer's gun was pressed directly against Charly's body. Like a slaughterhouse killing. I'd already reviewed a less-detailed autopsy report commissioned privately by Keunang's family and had access to leaked body-cam videos and recordings of internal police interviews with several of the officers involved. Even so, the autopsy report is startling. There's a moment in the body-cam video when it appears to me that Officer Francisco Martinez has his hand on Charly's torso—Charly is on his back after having been wrestled down and tased—with his gun pointed at the body.

LAPD Convinces LA Times To Fire Editorial Cartoonist, Ted Rall

July 29, 2015 Ted Rall, www.anewdomain.net Resist! Art, Freedom of Press, LAPD, Los Angeles, Media, police brutality

By Ted Rall in A New Domain - As an editorial cartoonist for The Los Angeles Times, I have drawn numerous cartoons critical of the Los Angeles Police Department’s abuse, corruption and heavy-handed incompetence. Now it seems the LAPD has gotten even: It has convinced the Times to fire me. At issue is a blog I wrote to accompany my May 11, 2015 cartoon for the Times. It was about an announced LAPD crackdown. Not on violent crime, but jaywalking. I opened with a personal anecdote from nearly 14 years ago, when a Los Angeles police officer ticketed me for jaywalking on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. The date was October 3, 2001. I’ll get into the allegations below the fold. But first, here is a far-from-complete sample of LAPD-related cartoons I’ve drawn for The Times and some other publications. . .

Activists Took Over Special Board Meeting On LAPD’s Use Of Violence

June 15, 2015 PM Beers, www.theantimedia.org Resist! LAPD, Los Angeles, police brutality

By PM Beers in The Anti-Media - Last Wednesday, the city decided to hold another meaningless meeting. It was intended allow community members upset with police violence against minorities a chance to vent,once again, to deaf ears. The Human Relations Commission hosted the first of two special board meetings regarding the impact of community policing. This first board meeting explored the issues of racial profiling and uses of force. After an hour and a half of venting to the reluctant panel, a young man named Evan went up to the podium to speak. He was upset at the division the podium created in the room and the physical separation between those speaking and those who were supposedly there to listen. He told the crowd to move the podium that separated the two groups.

After A Week, Police Bust Up Occupy LAPD Camp-In, Arrest 2 Women

January 7, 2015 Veronica Rocha, www.latimes.com Resist! LAPD, Los Angeles, police brutality, Racial Justice, Social Change

For seven days, organizers with the regional Black Lives Matter movement camped peacefully outside Los Angeles police headquarters downtown, calling their protest "Occupy LAPD." They had a set of demands centered on Ezell Ford and wanted an audience with Police Chief Charlie Beck. But Monday morning, they were forced to pack up tents, blankets, pots and pans and get off the sidewalk. Then two women in the group were arrested as they tried to take a letter to Beck. The group had been camped outside LAPD headquarters on 1st Street since Tuesday after the release of the autopsy report on Ford, the South Los Angeles man shot and killed in August during a confrontation with police.

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