About 35 demonstrators aligned themselves across the street from the Los Angeles Police Administrative Building on Sunday to show their support for law enforcement.
“Because of all the recent negative support from the media, we’re out here to support them (law enforcement) today,” said Petros Frangos, one of the event’s organizers.
“We need to stand together and be a family. And we never turn our back on our own,” added another supporter, who identified himself only as catholic priest Father Dan, who said he had previously worked in law enforcement.
The demonstration began at 1 p.m. with a prayer on the south lawn of the Los Angeles City Hall on First Street, led by Wiley S. Drake Sr., founder of the Buena Park-based Congressional Prayer Conference of Washington D.C.
Signs read “We Support The Rule of Law’ and “Reason Must Prevail Not Emotion.”
The demonstration broke up by about 3:30 p.m., but not before a handful of people showed up to show their displeasure with police tactics that have led to the deaths of unarmed black men.
One man was arrested on suspicion of battery, but it was unclear who he was suspected of battering, said Officer Norma Eisenman of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Media Relations Section. The arrested man was an anti-police protester, according to a report from the scene.
Meanwhile, dozens of protesters decrying police tactics rallied in the area of Anaheim Street and Chestnut Avenue in Long Beach, not far from where Donte Jordan was killed in an officer-involved shooting in November of 2013.
Members of Jordan’s family were among the protesters. They noted that Jordan, who was shot by officers responding to a report of a man firing shots at a vehicle in a gas station, would have turned 41 in two days.
— City News Service