Rioters caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage to downtown Los Angeles on Monday night, according to police.
Dozens of protesters gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Monday for reasons that were not immediately clear, according to authorities and local media. The protesters grew violent later in the night and began smashing windows and vandalizing property.
“Last night DTLA experienced a spasm of violence that resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in property loss. Our people did their very best to quell the violence, and will strive to arrest those responsible for the vandalism and destruction,” the Los Angeles Police Department tweeted on Tuesday evening along with a video of several people busting through store windows.
Last night DTLA experienced a spasm of violence that resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in property loss. Our people did their very best to quell the violence, and will strive to arrest those responsible for the vandalism and destruction.
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) October 7, 2020
The protest started around 9 p.m. before growing violent and ending around 11 p.m., according to the Los Angeles Times. Demonstrators were marching toward the LAPD headquarters on the corner of 1st and Main when several dozen began smashing shop windows and attempting to tear down metal barriers erected outside of the police building.
No damage was done to the LAPD headquarters, but multiple shop windows were smashed in the area and several demonstrators burned an American flag outside of the police building. The doors of the California Secretary of State building were also broken.
Authorities speculated that the protest may have been over the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Jonathan Price, a black man, by police in Texas on Saturday. Price’s name was found scrawled on several areas smashed and defaced by rioters.
Police in Texas arrested Shaun Lucas, 22, on Monday night for allegedly shooting Price. Lucas’s bail was set at $1 million.
On Saturday evening, Lucas had intervened in an altercation between Price and a woman. Texas Rangers investigating the shooting said that Price had resisted arrest in “a nonthreatening posture and began walking away” before Lucas fired his taser and then his service weapon at Lucas. Lucas was taken to a nearby hospital where he died, according to NBC News.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not objectionably reasonable,” the Rangers said.
Other news reports suggested that the Monday night riots in Los Angeles may have stemmed from demonstrations over the human rights violations in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
As The Daily Wire reports:
If the protests indeed broke off of demonstrations drawing attention to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, it could be the first instance of “Antifa-type” violence associated with those peaceful protests. Violent and destructive elements frequently used the anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests that erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in the custody of Minneapolis police as cover for more sinister activities.
Los Angeles has been the epicenter of protests supporting Armenia, CBSLA reports, with demonstrators blocking freeways and major intersections to draw attention to human rights issues at the center of the conflict.