I went to 2 protests last week to protest the mass rounding up of immigrants, military occupation of LA, and widespread police brutality. 13 million Americans protested Trump on June 14th.

The siege of LA has not just been the National Guard and Marines guarding federal buildings. The National Guard has been accompanying ICE on raids, and soldiers and military vehicles have been seen throughout Southern California! Every conceivable public space has been targeted by masked ICE agents. They have been seen outside pharmacies, post offices, swap meets, and they have raided carwashes, taco trucks, and supermarkets. This has happened mainly in Latino neighborhoods, but ICE has also seized workers at carwashes in West LA.

Twice in the last week, I have escaped police attacks at nonviolent protests I attended. I personally witnessed police use flashbang grenades, horses to charge at protesters, and launch teargas. On Wednesday, June 11th, 500 police officers surrounded the 1000-person protest I attended outside LA City Hall and blocked all streets to leave. At 6:30 PM police on horseback rushed the North side of a peaceful protest without an audible warning to the crowd. We protesters were forced to flee into Grand Park to the West of City Hall. (5 minutes before the assault, my friend asked the police how we were supposed to leave with all the streets and sidewalks blocked and they pointed to the park.)

I saw at least 30 officers with rubber bullet guns on just the Southern side of the protest. This assault on protesters happened 90 minutes before downtown LA’s curfew began. There are videos of police continuing to attack protesters with rubber bullets and sticks as protesters retreated through the park.

At 7:15 PM, police trapped a group of dozens of people and did not allow them to leave, and then arrested them for curfew violations at 8 PM. (Arrested protesters commented to the press that they suspect that, given the massive police presence LAPD were given orders to arrest protesters to justify their own presence, regardless of whether protesters were nonviolent.)

There has been police brutality against Angelenos every day since the ICE raids began in LA on Friday, June 6th. LAPD shot an Australian reporter in the leg with rubber bullets as she was reporting live on June 8th. Hundreds of rounds of tear gas had been launched at protesters before noon on the 2nd day of the protests in the Latino suburb of Paramount, CA.

On the 5^th day of the protests, the LA mayor declared a downtown LA curfew that went on for a whole week and was just lifted. Multiple nights the LAPD started trying to clear the area of protests hours before the curfew. This curfew area was excessively wide covering all downtown LA, Little Tokyo, and Chinatown including far outside the protest areas.

On Saturday, June 14^th, 200,000 Angelenos protested in downtown LA at the “No Kings” protest. Chants were heard of “ICE out of LA” and “National Guard and Marines Go Away”. I saw lots of American flags (including upside down flags symbolizing distress), Latin American flags, and some hybrid flags that are half American flag & half Mexican, and some Palestinian flags and people wearing keffiyehs. It was a multiracial crowd. There was a large Latino presence, but there was also a large presence of White people, and I also saw Black people, Middle Eastern people, and Asian people. The crowd tended towards more youthful people, but I saw plenty of middle-aged people, families, and senior citizens.

Unfortunately, the city of LA did what they could to make this protest inhospitable despite the mayor encouraging people to peacefully protest. They closed the public restrooms at the large park facing City Hall. Inexplicably, even though it was a permitted protest, organizers provided no porta potties. The city closed the Civic Center subway stop in the morning.

After marching around the populated part of downtown LA throughout the day, and rallying for hours at City Hall, after 3PM the protest turned toward the federal building where National Guards and Marines have been deployed by Trump.

For the record, in the first 2 days of anti-ICE protests in LA County, there were 5 protesters arrested in all of LA County. Since Trump called in the National Guard, LAPD alone have arrested around 600 protesters in less than 2 weeks. Nearly 1000 protesters have been arrested in LA County. Trump’s deployment of the military against the wishes of our governor completely inflamed the situation.

After 4:30 PM on Saturday, the LAPD and LA Sheriff’s Department launched tear gas at the crowd, and I heard flashbang grenades. I was unsure if the smoke was tear gas as I was one block away from the frontline, but I tried to leave the area, but of course LAPD were blocking the street towards City Hall from which we came, so I had to snake around a different way to leave. I left to get dinner in Little Tokyo where it was calm.

After 6 PM, I attempted to make my way out of downtown and go home but found it very difficult to get out of the area. Police had Alameda Street blocked going towards Union Station even though there had been no protest activity at the station. Then I saw the police shut down 2 subway stations that had been open earlier. I tried to make my way down to the closest open subway station but there were multiple police lines that I had to zigzag around to leave. Police arrested 38 people for curfew violations Saturday night.

Later, I saw videos that the smoke I had seen was tear gas and saw videos that yet again, police on horseback had attacked peaceful protesters with sticks. One of the protesters attacked by police on horseback was a 77-year-old Mexican American army veteran. Yet again, unlawful assembly orders were not audible to most of the crowd on the block. I find this highly suspicious, as I have heard the LAPD and other police agencies give very loud audible unlawful assembly orders at protests in the past.

LAPD also attacked a separate group of protesters North of the Federal building, which MSNBC showed live when they attacked that group of protesters. Police also attacked protesters 2 blocks away at LA City Hall with tear gas and rubber bullets. This had been the center of the “No Kings” day protests. LA police were so reckless that the LA Sheriff’s hit LAPD with rubber bullets while they were attacking protesters on Saturday. There were severe injuries on Saturday, with one protester being shot in the eye, another shot in the head, and one protester who lost a finger after having a flashbang grenade hit him in the hand.

Despite all this police brutality, there have been protests every day since this siege on the greater Los Angeles area began. There have been protests throughout Southern California including a 500-person protest in Long Beach on June 10th, a 1000-person protest in Oxnard, CA that same day, and protesters who were teargassed in Santa Ana the same day in Orange County. Californians have also been protesting in the LA suburbs outside hotels where ICE is staying.

There was widespread protest around SoCal on Saturday for the “No Kings” protests, with 15,000 in Santa Ana alone, 12,000 in Ventura County, and 60,000 turned out in San Diego. Even in more conservative outlying areas, protesters turned out with 1200 protesters in Redlands, and 1000 protesters in Victorville.

Throughout SoCal, there has been widespread community defense of people reporting when they see ICE and confronting masked ICE agents. A young man who is a US citizen in Pico Rivera was arrested on June 16th outside the Walmart where he worked when he confronted ICE trying to take his coworker. A church pastor in Downey told ICE to get off their property when they seized someone from their parking lot. There are dozens such stories of ordinary working-class people recording and confronting Trump’s masked secret police.

Trump’s racism made him believe it would be easy to round up Brown people in Los Angeles but LA County is 85% US citizens and Americans of all colors are not letting masked men seize their neighbors without resistance.

While it was the federal immigration raids and Trump calling in the National Guard and Marines that was the trigger for these mass protests, it has been the LAPD, LA Sheriffs, and local police doing over 90% of the brutalizing of protesters. The mayor of LA is completely complicit with the siege of Los Angeles and has been doing Trump’s dirty work for him. It is not Trump who is clearing City Hall of peaceful protesters in the afternoons. Despite what the local police have been doing, it is not illegal for Californians to protest ICE raids and a military occupation outside federal buildings.

This police state is having devastating economic effects as not only undocumented immigrants, but also documented immigrants, and even many Latino US born citizens stay home to avoid being racially profiled by ICE. ICE has arrested multiple US born citizens in LA since this siege began. Latino neighborhoods and areas patronized by Latino shoppers are much emptier than usual.

It is also telling that the first Latino US senator from California, Alex Padilla, was manhandled, put in handcuffs, and thrown to the ground by the DHS in a federal building in front of live cameras. Trump’s message that all Latinos may be targeted by federal police has been sent. Latino and Black members of congress have also not allowed access to federal immigrant detention centers in LA since this siege began. Jimmy Gomez, a Latino congressman, tried to visit the federal Metropolitan Detention Center 3 times in 2 weeks and was told by ICE on Monday that it is not a detention facility and denied him access!

Previously, Black politicians in Newark, New Jersey were manhandled by ICE in May while visiting an ICE detention center. The mayor of Newark, NJ, Ras Baraka, was arrested by federal police in early May, and a Black congresswoman, LaMonica McIver, is facing trumped-up charges of assaulting ICE officers. On Monda,y June 18th, the New York City Comptroller, Brad Lander, a White politician who is running for mayor, was arrested by ICE in a federal building as he asked to see a judicial warrant for an immigrant who had just left a court hearing. Today, Latino and Black congresspeople were also denied access to an ICE detention center in Chicago for the 2nd day in a row.

The fight to free Los Angeles from military occupation and against ICE raids is a struggle for immigrant rights, an antiracist struggle, an antifascist struggle, and resistance against a police state. We are being used as the test run to see how ICE can be used as Trump’s fascist secret police force. LA and SoCal will not give up and will continue to resist. Hasta la victoria siempre!