LAPD union complains there were too few officers to handle demonstrations, blasts mayor’s support of protests

The union that represents Los Angeles’ rank-and-file officers complained Monday that the city’s police department did not adequately prepare to handle thousands of protesters who swarmed downtown Los Angeles after Donald Trump’s election day victory, and union officials also blasted Mayor Eric Garcetti’s support of the demonstrators.

Speaking at the Los Angeles Police Protective League’s downtown headquarters, union president Craig Lally called for the city controller to conduct an audit of the LAPD’s staffing levels last week and repeatedly bashed a comment Garcetti made at a news conference last week that protesters should try not to “break too many laws” while demonstrating.

“When officers are being physically assaulted, when property is being vandalized, those are words of encouragement to those who intend on breaking the law,” Lally said.

A spokeswoman for Garcetti noted that the mayor clearly denounced any lawbreaking by protesters when he was addressing reporters last week. The quote was a snippet of comments Garcetti made over the span of more than 10 minutes in which he repeatedly urged demonstrators not to enter freeways or damage property.

In a statement, the LAPD said most of last week’s protests were spontaneous, but that the department redirected resources downtown as fast as it could for crowd control.

“The LAPD made every effort to redeploy the resources necessary to protect the areas affected by the demonstrations and quickly adapt to the changing circumstances,” the statement read. “The department’s quick action to redeploy resources coupled with proactive engagement with the protesters avoided substantial property damage and injuries.”

For five nights last week, throngs of protesters marched across downtown Los Angeles and into the Westlake area to denounce Trump’s election. His campaign rhetoric, which many have criticized as racist and misogynistic, has fueled massive demonstrations in New York City, Chicago, Portland, Ore., Miami and other cities.

Protests in Los Angeles have been largely peaceful, and nearly 8,000 people marched from MacArthur Park to downtown Los Angeles on Saturday. But Los Angeles police did arrest hundreds of people during earlier protests that raged from Wednesday night into early Saturday morning, and the majority of those arrests were for vandalism or failure to obey a lawful order.

One incident Thursday night was of particular concern to union officials. An officer attempting to stop a protester from tagging a wall near the LAPD’s downtown headquarters was pummeled and lost his gun during a clash with several people who had broken off from a larger cluster of demonstrators, union officials said. Two people were arrested, and the officer was not seriously injured, but his gun remains missing, police officials told The Times.

A protest the night after Trump’s victory spilled onto the 101 Freeway, snarling traffic for several hours as officers tried to chase a resilient group of nearly 300 people off the entrance and exit ramps near Union Station. Twenty-eight people were arrested that night, either for entering the freeway or refusing to disperse after the LAPD and officers with the California Highway Patrol managed to chase demonstrators back onto the Alameda Street overpass.

Graffiti crews have also posed a significant problem for police, hiding among the demonstrators and spray-painting vulgar insults toward Trump or simpler tags on the sides of buildings and news vans, and even on the doors of some LAPD cruisers.

Lally said the LAPD’s command staff had “no plan” to deal with the protests last week, and harshly criticized the department for failing to call in additional officers or order a large-scale mobilization to deal with the massive crowds. Robb Harris, a director with the union, said other commands — including Rampart, West Los Angeles and Pacific divisions — were left woefully understaffed as police had to scramble to deal with the protests.

Harris also said Garcetti’s comments in support of demonstrators were an insult to officers who responded to the protests.

“That statement is not a statement from a leader,” he said of the mayor’s comments.

As the union officials spoke out, hundreds of high school students kicked off another round of protests late Monday morning, walking out of classes downtown and massing at City Hall. Groups of California Highway Patrol cars could be seen near freeway entrances and in parking lots around the area, which officials described as a preventive measure.

Chief William Siegl, head of the CHP’s Southern Division, said his officers have stopped protesters from entering the 101 and 110 freeways on multiple occasions in the past week and are hoping to prevent both another freeway shutdown and a situation in which they are forced to make mass arrests.

“We’re trying to balance our obligations and responsibilities with the safety of protesters and the public, and resorting to force is not always the best method of mitigating the problem,” he said. “We would rather try and establish dialogue with the leaders of the groups, and ask them, discuss with them, ways in which we could mitigate the problem.”

Times staff writer Kate Mather contributed to this report.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.

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