Tag: crime

Protesters or agitators: Who is driving chaos at L.A. immigration protests?

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The crowd near Los Angeles City Hall had by Sunday evening reached an uneasy detente with a line of grim-faced police officers.
The LAPD officers gripped “less lethal” riot guns, which fire foam rounds that leave red welts and ugly bruises on anyone they hit. Demonstrators massed in downtown Los Angeles for the third straight day. Some were there to protest federal immigration sweeps across the county — others appeared set on wreaking havoc.

Several young men crept through the crowd, hunched over and hiding something in their hands. They reached the front line and hurled eggs at the officers, who fired into the fleeing crowd with riot guns.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has drawn a distinction between protesters and masked “anarchists” who he said were bent on exploiting the state of unrest to vandalize property and attack police.

Jonas March, who was filming the protests as an independent journalist, dropped to the floor and tried to army-crawl away.

“As soon as I stood up, they shot me in the a—,” the 21-year-old said.

“When I look at the people who are out there doing the violence, that’s not the people that we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” McDonnell said Sunday. “These are people who are all hooded up — they’ve got a hoodie on, they’ve got face masks on.”

“They’re people that do this all the time,” he said. “They get away with whatever they can. Go out there from one civil unrest situation to another, using the same or similar tactics frequently. And they are connected.””

…

“the unrest has trained attention on a narrow slice of the region — the civic core of Los Angeles — where protests have devolved into clashes with police and made-for-TV scenes of chaos: Waymo taxis on fire. Vandals defacing city buildings with anti-police graffiti. Masked men lobbing chunks of concrete at California Highway Patrol officers keeping protesters off the 101 Freeway.”

…

“The LAPD arrested 50 people over the weekend. Capt. Raul Jovel, who oversaw the department’s response to the protests, said those arrested included a man accused of ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers and another suspect who allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail.

McDonnell said investigators will scour video from police body cameras and footage posted on social media to identify more suspects.

“The number of arrests we made will pale in comparison to the number of arrests that will be made,” McDonnell said.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/protesters-agitators-driving-chaos-l-100000689.html

Marines that deployed to Los Angeles have not yet responded to immigration protests

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Monday’s demonstrations were far less raucous, with thousands peacefully attending a rally at City Hall and hundreds protesting outside a federal complex that includes a detention center where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids across the city.

The protests in Los Angeles, a city of 4 million people, have largely been centered in several blocks of downtown. At daybreak Tuesday, guard troops were stationed outside the detention center but there was no sign of the Marines.

Trump has described Los Angeles in dire terms that Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom say are nowhere close to the truth. They say he is putting public safety at risk by adding military personnel even though police say they don’t need the help.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said in a statement he was confident in the police department’s ability to handle large-scale demonstrations and that the Marines’ arrival without coordinating with the police department would present a “significant logistical and operational challenge” for them.

Newsom called the deployments reckless and “disrespectful to our troops” in a post on the social platform X.”

…

“There was a heavy law enforcement presence in the few square blocks including the federal detention facility, while most of Los Angeles went about their normal business on peaceful streets.

As the crowd thinned, police began pushing protesters away from the area, firing crowd-control munitions as people chanted, “Peaceful protest.” Officers became more aggressive in their tactics in the evening, occasionally surging forward to arrest protesters that got too close. At least a dozen people were surrounded by police and detained.

Outside a clothing warehouse in LA County, relatives of detained workers demanded at a news conference that their loved ones be released.

The family of Jacob Vasquez, 35, who was detained Friday at the warehouse, where he worked, said they had yet to receive any information about him.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-authorizes-additional-2-000-053455799.html

How viral images are shaping views of L.A.’s immigration showdown

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Many accounts, knowingly or unknowingly, shared images that warped the reality of what was happening on the ground. An X account with 388,000 followers called US Homeland Security News, which is not affiliated with DHS but paid for one of X’s “verified” blue check marks, posted a photo of bricks that it said had been ordered to be “used by Democrat militants against ICE agents and staff!! It’s Civil War!!” The photo actually originated on the website of a Malaysian construction-supply company. The post has nevertheless been viewed more than 800,000 times.”

…

“Some online creators treated the L.A. clashes as a prized opportunity for viral content. On Reddit, accounts with names like LiveNews_24H posted “crazy footage” compilations of the unrest and said it looked like a “war zone.” On YouTube, Damon Heller, who comments on police helicopter footage and scanner calls under the name Smoke N’ Scan, streamed the clashes on Sunday for nearly 12 hours.”

…

“Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said videos can play a uniquely forceful role in shaping people’s reactions to current events because they “encapsulate the emotion of the moment.”
“There’s a heavy dose of misinformation,” he added. “And, you know, people just end up getting angrier and angrier.””

https://www.yahoo.com/news/viral-images-shaping-views-l-133509687.html

Could 2025 See the Lowest Murder Rate Ever Recorded?

Posted on by Lone Candle

“the murder rate in 2024 not just falling from the 2020 spike but returning to pre-COVID levels. That brings us to the present, and to a question: Could 2025 see the lowest murder rate ever recorded?”

…

“Fewer people are being killed than they were during a major homicide increase” is not compelling messaging, to be sure. But that’s not what’s happening here. We’re not talking about a record decline after a precipitous surge; we’re talking about a record low, period. While it’s still possible that won’t pan out, the fact that it’s even on the table after a bloody few years is such good news that journalists might even consider leading with it.”

Could this be aided by aging demographics?

https://reason.com/2025/05/27/could-2025-see-the-lowest-murder-rate-ever-recorded/

Trump Says They’re Foreign Gang Members. Are They?

Posted on by Lone Candle

Many people that Trump deported and imprisoned without due process, claiming they were violent gang members, appear to not be violent or gang members.

The government’s system for identifying a “gang member” is clearly flawed and easily misidentifies people. And remember, these non gang members are not simply being sent home, but imprisoned in El Salvador, whether or not they are Elsaslvadorian or committed deserving crimes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDU0cAsbg_A

Conservative’s Depraved Indifference For Deported Dad On Full Display

Posted on by Lone Candle

Trump administration and Conservative pundits use incidents of rape to paint all illegal immigrants and asylum seekers as criminals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtOwU06pNaE

Why Trump won’t be deporting “millions” of criminals

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Less than 1% of immigrants deported last fiscal year were kicked out of the U.S. for crimes other than immigration violations.”

…

“To deport millions of “criminals,” Trump would have to consider all undocumented immigrants as criminals. But being in the U.S. illegally is a civil violation, not a criminal one.”

…

“Those millions would have to include agricultural, construction and service workers, students and others who are unauthorized to be in the U.S. but have no criminal backgrounds, according to legal specialists and an Axios review of federal immigration data.”

…

“”There are not millions of people with criminal records to deport,” Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago, tells Axios.”

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/27/undocumented-immigrants-crime-deportations-trump