WEBVTT - On The Ground In LA 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:05.680 Alzon Media. 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:14.600 I ain't coming that a big one. Are welcome back 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.560 to it could happen here. A podcast that was originally 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:22.720 about the theoretical possibility of mass civil conflict and coming 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:27.240 militarized authoritarian regime and is now about the reality of 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.440 that happening to different communities at different speeds all around 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.360 the country, and right now Los Angeles is where we're 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.440 focused on. Yeah, as you've probably heard from the news 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.000 or from the episode we did earlier this week, Los Angeles, 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.239 California has been in a state of what the President 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.720 declared insurrection, what most people would declare fairly small protests 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.360 based on the overall size of the city, topping out 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.720 at maybe four to six thousand people on Sunday, and 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.240 the President is called a National Guard, He's called in 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.400 the Marines, and we called in James Stout to head 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.560 up to Los Angeles and look at the scene. James, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.160 that's right, Yeah, me the alternative to the United States 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.920 Marine Corps. Yeah, So I've just got back from LA 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:16.560 I was there on Monday night, obviously covering the protests. 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.720 I got there mid morning, I guess, but at that 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.559 point the SEIU were having a rally. Yeah, the rally 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.240 was for the release of David Huerta, who was released 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:29.480 on bail. I believe after that, like not while the 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.960 rally was going on, and from there, like I basically 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.560 sort of started walking around downtown La. I guess there 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.000 was this really weird kind of phenomenon where you'd like 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.440 go down to a place and you'd see one hundred 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:51.400 people shouting cops, fed troops, or some combination of the three. 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:51.640 Right. 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.000 Pretty often around the Federal building, it's weird. At the 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.080 front entrance, like where the entrance was, you had like 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.240 a initial presence of like the front line were National 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:05.640 Guard with maybe it looked like it was maybe like 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:09.960 NCOs or something. You had loaded service weapons, and then 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.760 other soldiers had shields in it and like old school 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.080 wooden button sticks, right, just just a long long ass stick. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.720 Basically around the other side you had LAPD at the 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.840 front and National Guard behind them, and then across the 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.280 street from that you had California Highway Patrol and their 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.880 riot squad. And then in another location, I think it 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.919 was at City Hall, you had La Sheriff's so literally 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.160 every agency that can claim any jurisdiction. 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:38.560 Right. 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:43.200 There was also a DHSRPF FPS, Like literally literally every 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.120 every federal and local agency that could send cops sent cops. 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:49.960 It wouldn't surprise me to hear that there were more 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.680 than a thousand cops, Like maybe it was hundreds, But 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.760 it was hard to get a handle on because every 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.160 street you went down, every corner you turned, you ran 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.239 into another wall of cops right of ten or fifteen 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:05.320 cars behind them. They were constantly driving around until you know, 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.079 I stayed until about two in the morning, and it's 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.320 protest obviously, like as I'll explain later, kind of escalated, 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.000 I guess, and there's police violence escalated. In the evening, 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.720 you'd see these convoys of cop cars just hauling ass 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.919 through downtown periodically every hour or so, like running lights 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:25.320 and sirens, like a dozen or so cop cars just 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:27.959 booking it through downtown. Yeah, so it's very hard to 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:29.840 get a sense of like who they are, what they 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.680 were doing. They closed all the freeway entrances and exits, 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.520 which like I took the I took a train up 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.080 trying to be a mass transit enjoyer, and it made 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.840 it a fucking nightmare to get anywhere, right, Yeah, that 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:46.160 makes sense, Like anyone who lives or works in downtown 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.080 LA will have experienced this already, but like it's and 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.839 then throughout the fuck in the evening, right, you've got 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.320 people coming up to you being like, Hey, I live 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.160 in little Tokyo. I can't get back because there's a 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:02.040 wall of cops and they keep throwing tea, gescalades, any suggestions. 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:02.280 Yeah, I can't get home. 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.600 Yeah, like an unfortunately, like you know, not much we 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.600 can suggest. And then on top of that, because it's 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.200 southern California, you know the United States, really people who 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.640 can't afford a place to live asleeping on the street 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:19.240 and they're getting TS two and they're getting flashbag too. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.640 I remember like we were up by LAPDHQ at one 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.200 point and I seen this guy sleeping on a bench 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:28.599 and the cops were pushing up the street and I 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:30.520 was just trying to sort of take a position where 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:31.840 I could take a photograph, you know, and I saw 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:33.479 him sleeping and I was like, oh, should I wait, 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:35.120 wake this guy? You know, I don't want him to 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.400 get a nasty surprise and wake up to a wall 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.520 of robocops. And at that point the cops opened up 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.880 with whatever they were shooting at that time, forty milimeter, 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:44.920 thirty seven millimeter. 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.000 Yeah, most of what I've heard is a mix of 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.680 pepper balls and yeah forty milimeter yeah, yeah, grenades and 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.119 rubber rounds, some foam, Yeah, some foam. 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.480 I found some Safari Land thirty seven milimeter foam casings 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:58.120 on the ground. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.080 Oh nice. Yeah, and yeah, mostly what it was. 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.039 You know, LAPD have those green forty milimeters launchers with 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:06.520 the eotex on top, and that was what. 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.400 Yeah, it looks down the barrel of a few times. 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.480 And so if the evening went on right, you'd get 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.400 larger groups and they'd become like, you know, more vocal, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.040 I guess in their protesting. At one point, people having 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.760 like a street dance party. Occasionally people would would throw 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:27.080 a firework or set off a firework, and then sporadically 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.840 and like without really any clear kind of signal, at 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.080 some point clearly the whole area was declared an lawful assembly. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.520 I'm guessing it's very hard to actually hear when they're 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:38.680 saying stuff on the l RAD unless it's directly like 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.080 pointed at you. But I heard some signed kind of 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.960 olt rad an awful assembly announcement at some point, and yeah, 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.600 periodically you'd come around a three corner and be like 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.680 one hundred, one hundred and fifty two hundred people protesting 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.400 right and then the cops would toss a flashbang or 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:59.440 a tear gas, loose off a few rounds, push thirty 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:04.080 yards and then stop and then do that again ten, fifteen, 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.359 twenty thirty minutes later, and they keep doing that, and 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.279 then they push people back past these various buildings which 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.800 had cops like stationed in place like on the parapet 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.840 of the building or on the courtyard outside, who would 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.360 then also fire at them. So the protest never really 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:21.600 got a chance to centralize. People didn't really get a 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.000 chance to centralize in one place. And you know, like 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.799 to have a sense of how many numbers of protesters 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.080 there were was hard because every torny you turned, there were. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.520 More people and there were more cops. So like it 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.159 was a bit broken apart. 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:38.560 And I think that was the goal of the policing 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.640 operation right to flood the city, was cops to shut 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:43.640 it all down, to make it hard to get there, yep, 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:45.080 and make it hard to gather there. 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.040 I still don't get the sense, and this is what 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.080 it sounds like from what You've said that most of 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.200 what is being done effectively is not the National Guard 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.760 and certainly not the Marines. It's the federal and local 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:01.320 police and their game plan here is they assuming things 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.719 calmed out in Los Angeles, which is probably the safe 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.000 bet right now. Every time they get over a certain 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.640 threshold of protesters a couple of hundred one thousand or 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.560 so in a city, you know, do the same thing, right, 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.440 like deploy the military national or federalized the National Guard, 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.440 get him out there, right, Like that's that's where they're headed. 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.800 Yeah, I think so, Like I don't know if LA 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:25.600 will back down, to be clear, Like La is a 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.600 city of what like like four million people. 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.040 And eighteen nineteen million in the greater Los Angeles metro area. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.960 Yeah, Like it's uh, I know right, Like I had 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.000 these I had good conversations with a lot of people 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:40.960 who are out there protesting. I want to go to 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:42.400 to ad like it is that we were really well 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.120 received by everyone, which was nice. Like it wasn't the 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.280 same crowd as folks I've seen in twenty twenty, Like 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:49.560 no one was in black block, right of course, and 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.440 then it was very young people and like a number 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.400 of the approached. I was for a time. I was 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.840 with Charles McBride and like some other oh yeah yeah 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.440 colleagues and friends, like people have known fet years, right, 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.960 we cover the same kind of shit. And people would 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:04.640 come up to us and just be like, hey, it's 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:06.560 good that you guys are here. Thank you for staying 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.280 here after we got fucking tear guests, like people should 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.120 understand that what's happening, Like the unprompted people would would 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.400 come and say thank you, which was nice, you know, 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.040 and like we didn't really face any any hostility for 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.800 being there. But people when I spoke to them, like 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:23.400 there was a lot of a lot of people I 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.400 spoke to were very young, and they would say that 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:31.000 they were the citizen kid of parents who either were 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.520 you know, like permanent residents or visa holders or you know, 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.360 they're veryous. I'm sure if some of them had undocumented parents. 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.320 I can't remember speaking to anyone who said that, but 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.520 I'm sure that given the numbers of people and the 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.560 number of times I heard like, I'm the citizen child, 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:45.880 so I should be here showing up for my family 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:47.280 and my community. 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:48.000 Right, yeah, that makes sense. 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.040 Yeah, And like it's gonna be hard to back those 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.120 people down because they were fucking angry. Yeah, a real 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.520 palpable sense of like fuck you was like very present throughout. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:01.360 People were also afraid. 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.200 It's not people who are necessarily used to this, right, 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.280 and like you said, the police response is an overwhelming. 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.760 Use of violence, right, indiscriminately shooting it people from what 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.040 what's the what's the furthest distance you were seeing them 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:15.120 fire at people from. 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.720 I mean I probably saw them taking one hundred meter shots, 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:20.840 I'm guessing, like. 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:22.960 Which is very long range for this sort of stuff. 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.200 Yeah, I mean so at one point, when we've got 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.400 pushed back past the LAPDHQ there, they had the whole 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:30.480 sort of front face of it, and they led off 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.880 a bunch of shots towards myself and some others. I 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.120 just sort of got down behind some cover there and 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.440 started filming. And then there was a group of young 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.800 people who were in one of those kind of classic 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.120 LA three corner open quad more things. 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:45.600 Yeah. 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.760 So they're basically in a in a U shaped container, 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.360 right with only one way in and one way out, 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:56.199 and right there's glass stores around it like that, you know, 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.720 there's all the shopping bits people go shopping and there's 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.040 pill in the middle, and the cops are just unloading 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.240 from a distance of maybe one hundred meters from labd HQ. 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.720 I think into these people who are effectively like in 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:12.559 a like fish in a barrel. Right, they're in a 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:14.640 container where they is the only way I was the 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.959 direction the cops shooting from. There was a small outlet 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.560 on the other side, which eventually they were able to take. 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:22.559 That meant they had to cross across like a four 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.360 lane road while being shot at by the cops. And 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:28.679 the cops just kept shooting at them there like it 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:33.200 wasn't like they shot a couple of times. They clearly shot, reloaded, shot, reloaded, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.320 and I was filming from the other side, but you 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:41.360 could see these projectiles whacking out like reinforced glass in 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.720 the front of these businesses at head height, not breaking 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.160 the glass and falling on the ground, punching a hole 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.480 straight through. You know, they get coming with serious force 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.960 even at that distance. And like those people weren't presenting 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.760 a threat twenty one right, they had retreated into that 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.000 building after the cops shot their first volley, and the 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:00.560 cubs just kept shooting at them. 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:02.920 I saw a lot of that throughout the. 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.920 Night, Like it didn't seem like, you know, anyone was 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:07.760 like okay, now it's a time for you guys to fire, 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.640 you know, like they just just sporadic shots throughout the evening. 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.440 Yeah. Well, we're gonna continue talking about what's going on 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:17.920 in Los Angeles and what we think is going to 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:47.680 happen next. But first, here's some ads fuck and we're back. So, 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.040 if you read like the manuals these people are supposed 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.800 to follow, how they're supposed to utilize the riot control 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.520 weapons that they use, there's a couple of things that 0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:59.880 you see. One of them is that they're supposed to 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:03.960 be like a bladder of escalation before which they start 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:06.720 utilizing force a range. And the other is that there's 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.400 certain ways they're supposed to use these munitions, like, for example, 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.600 you're not supposed to shoot people with rubber bullets. You're 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.360 supposed to bounce them off of the ground and into 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:19.200 people because otherwise they're not really less than lethal. Yeah. Yeah, 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:21.200 we're seeing a lot of cases of people who've had 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:23.439 at least several that I can count, I think three 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.360 of people having surgically removed different like rubber and foam rounds, 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:30.480 and it doesn't look like they're abiding by kind of 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.079 any of the rules by which, per their own documentation, 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.120 they're supposed to practice, right, I mean, yeah, that's what 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:38.600 I saw. 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.000 Some of them even have eotechs like on their launches, 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:42.880 which I don't know why you'd want an eotech if 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.400 you were skipping it off the ground. I don't know, 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.640 maybe there's a different rounds they're using, but like, yeah, yeah, 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:53.680 the overwhelming what I saw was just like zero to 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.760 one hundred, right, Like they push, they'd throw a ta 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:58.640 gass or a flash bang, and then you just hear 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:00.840 like pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. Yeahs, a 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.480 bunch of them unloaded and like raising the forty milimeters 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.800 launcher to his shoulder and pointing it to someone two 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:07.440 feet away. 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:09.000 Like I saw a lot of that. 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.560 Yeah, you know, we'd be going down these streets trying 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:13.280 to find a different angle, trying to find where we 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.199 could stand and do our jobs as press right and 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.839 come around the corner and just just get a forty 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.080 milimeters pointed at you. I didn't see any skipping shit 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.760 off the ground. Yeah, I did see businesses getting their 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.640 windows punched out by things that the police were shooting 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:28.679 at people like. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.000 Yeah, which I'm sure we're one getting blamed on protesters. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:32.640 exactly right. 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.160 I mean I saw CNN last night was picking up 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.480 fucking phone button rounds and being like these are what 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.679 they're throwing at the cops, Like yeah, it just remarkable. 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:47.000 I mean I did see LASD and National Guard with 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.360 rifles with magazines in the maguel and you know they 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.120 had a round chamber doesn't matter, does it. 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.760 No, you're a second away from chambering around, right, exactly. 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.200 Yeah, the IDF carries with an empty chamber and it 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.240 hasn't stopped them a whole lot of people, has it. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:07.360 The presence of lethal force was closer than I've seen before. Yeah, 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.439 Like I'm familiar with seeing overwatch at these things, Right, 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.080 someone would what you would colloquially referred to as a 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.240 sniper on a rooftop. But it's not overwatching if you're 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:17.720 just in the back of a pickup truck with an 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.600 M four right, look at an unmagnified optic, like you're 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.680 not You're not over watching shit, you just have lethal 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:27.600 force right there. And I saw that a number of times, 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.520 right from the National Guard and then la SD. They 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.040 did the whole l rad like go home. It's been 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.960 declared an awful assembly thing. But then there wasn't that 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.360 kind of scaled use of force that like you say, 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:40.680 is supposed. 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:40.680 To be there. 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.360 There wasn't really much in the way of like we're 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.040 going to start shooting now, and like, of course that 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.680 means that if you're an unhused person, if you've arrived, 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:52.840 if you're if you're a local person just trying to 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.240 get home, it's very possible you can just walk past 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.160 and get tear gas. Like at one point, right they 0:14:58.160 --> 0:14:59.960 were opening up, and like I'd been looking for a 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.680 excuse of bathroom for a while because fucking southern California, right, 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.520 like there are no public bathrooms, yes. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.720 Which is you know, increasingly every major city. He was 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:11.800 an issue. People got, people get arrested by the fence 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.880 for like being on federal property in Portland. Great when 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:16.240 like there was really nowhere else to go. 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.480 Yeah, yeah, exactly, and like some some kindly local guy 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.520 invited us into his building and asked that, you know, 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.000 let us use the bathroom. But yeah, then we stepped 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.960 out and suddenly we're like confronted by cops again, Like 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.880 you know, I could have been someone who was there 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:34.760 just going to have to get a slice of pizza. Yeah, 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.440 the force was like sporadic and unpredictable throughout the evening. 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.600 And then as were these convoys of vehicles that would 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.440 just come hauling ass through downtown right obviously not you know, 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:46.720 stopping at red lights, et cetera. 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:47.520 It was weird. 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.360 Sometimes a green light would happen, so the cars would 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.040 start going like and then this cop convoy would come 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:54.480 and some of them would turn right, and some of 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.720 them would assume the cars would stop and go straight on. 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:58.680 And so you had the situation where the cops were 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.560 nearly hitting each other and it just like it seemed 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.240 utterly chaotic, and I don't know what they were doing 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.280 other than driving around a high speed for fun. Once 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.440 they did manage to kettle some groups of people right 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.880 like they again folks maybe who haven't been at these 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.280 events before will not be familiar with the way these 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.960 things work. But like the police would move in from 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.200 both sides and then suddenly you're like, oh shit, there's 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.560 nowhere to go. And then I did and put up 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.560 in a school bus to take presuably to detain those 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.600 people and take them to process them. But yeah, the 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.400 tactics were like, I mean, it's their cops. Is what 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.400 you expect that you know, we've both been doing this 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.000 for a while. You expect them to use those weapons 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:38.720 in the way they can inflict the most damage and 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.880 harm to people, And unfortunately, like that does seem to 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:42.680 be happening again. 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.320 Yeah, well, in terms of where things are right now, yeah, 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.280 you know, Gavin Newsom is trying to thread the needle. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.800 It looks like between letting the LAPD do whatever they 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:55.840 and he, to be fair, I don't think he has 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.640 any issue with people getting fucked up with right nations 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:04.760 what to do well, also not seeding responsibility for security 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:06.840 of his state to the federal government, which has been 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:08.480 an interesting line for him to walk. 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:10.879 Yeah, I mean his stance seems to be like the 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.560 LAPD can fuck up these kids, just fine, we don't 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:15.520 need your help, yes. 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.680 Which I mean they literally can. Like I will say, yeah, 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.320 that's not incorrect, right, I'm not talking at a moral level. 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.200 I'm just saying like, yes, the LAPD has sufficient force 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.960 for the protests that have been that have existed. 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.159 Yeah, I mean the LAPD then the first Nights who 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:32.399 were caught off guard. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.040 I think right, and so was ICE, And there was 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.440 a lot of debate about because like you know, LAPD 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.600 not coming in initially to support ICE when they got surrounded, 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.320 like and that's those are the kind of things you 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:48.040 get when the authorities are taken off balance. But if 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.560 the numbers don't keep increasing, you know, and they have 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.119 to increase pretty exponentially as they move in, you know, 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.800 federal agents in the National Guard and mobilize the whole 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.520 police force in a city like LA, then this situation 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.320 becomes basically impossible for protesters to regain the initiative. And 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.160 I don't know if i'd say it's impossible right now, 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:11.240 but unless there's some sort of like massive sea changes, 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.440 what's happening that does seem kind of like where things 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.960 are going to go. And to be clear, here we're 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:21.800 talking about primarily Compton Paramount some protests, and then downtown 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.359 Los Angeles some protests. There's a handful of city blocks 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:28.520 and one of the largest metro areas in the entire country. Yeah, 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.320 this is not Los Angeles all collapsed. 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.080 You know. Yeah, it's not like the rights to occurred 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:36.640 after Rudney. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.200 King, right, right, right, not even a little bit. 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.480 Yeah, no yet right like, yeah, I mean people are 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.080 pissed off obviously, like and maybe that you know, you'll 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.359 get that sort of thing you had important right where 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.680 more people came as the protest continued, and there's more 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.360 and more FEDS turned up, Like there were people who 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.119 might not have showed up at first just being like 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:01.159 upset at the presence of FEDS in this. I don't know, 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.120 but yeah, it seems like right now that their move 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.960 is to flood the city. I mean, crazy volumes of 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.160 cops shouting all the exits on the one ten today. Yeah, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:15.399 National Guard, like the National Guide folks were mostly around 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.439 the Federal building from what I saw, but like just 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.760 a huge volume of cobs and no particular plan other 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.040 than a vast number of police and I guess you know, 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.760 massive detentions, massive use of right at munitions, massive use 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:34.639 of violence to dissuade protest. But then I've seen like 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.600 obviously it's interesting, right like, and I'm sure you've experienced this, Robert, 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.680 Like you can be like nose to the grindstone in 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.920 a conflict zone or at a protest and other clue 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.320 what's happening, and I have to go on a Twitter 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:49.840 or a Blue sky to work out what the fuck's 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:50.760 going on, right, you. 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:52.600 Can tell kind of what's happening in front of you, 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.320 and even then you sometimes see something or you're looking 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.080 left and the thing happens on the right, and you 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.600 get three different stories about what happened totally. 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.560 And so like, you know, you know, we found out 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.720 David Twist had been released when me I sent a 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.240 message saying that, like right, and then likewise, folks for 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:12.760 finding out that they're protests in other areas of the country, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:14.880 which you know is always I think gives a little 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:19.200