About 130 people were arrested in downtown Los Angeles overnight amid continuing citywide protests sparked by a grand jury decision not to indict a white Missouri police officer who killed a young, unarmed black man, police said today.
About three dozen arrests were made near the intersection of South Flower and West Ninth streets around 12:30 a.m., Los Angeles Police Department Officer Sara Faden said.
LAPD officers also arrested protestors at the intersection of West Temple Street and North Broadway before dawn. Those arrests were for disorderly conduct, Faden said.
The total number of arrests overnight was about 130, and the final figure was still being tallied, a police officer said.
“We had given them ample time to leave, and they were told to leave,” Faden said of the protesters arrested at Temple and Broadway. “They didn’t do so, and they were arrested.”
The arrests marked the second day of protests in Los Angeles over a grand jury decision not to prosecute a white police officer for the fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old black man in Ferguson, Missouri.
Four people were arrested by the LAPD, and four others by California Highway Patrol officers Tuesday night after impromptu barricades were used to stop traffic on the Hollywood (101) Freeway.
CHP Officer Kerri Rivas said large pieces of debris were used to block northbound and southbound lanes of the freeway downtown by Grand Avenue around 9:15 p.m. Tuesday. The lanes were re-opened by 9:45 p.m. Rivas said. Those arrested were part of a crowd of around 100 gathered on the freeway Rivas said.
The group arrested at Ninth and Flower this morning were the remnants of a much larger march that had meandered through the southern section of downtown Tuesday night and early Wednesday.
Members of the group had briefly halted a northbound Metro train near the Pico station at West 12th and South Flower streets around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, a news videographer reported from the scene.
