Angry protesters spill into SoCal streets, decry second killing by U.S. agents in Minnesota
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Protesters in Southern California and elsewhere in the nation on Sunday angrily denounced the fatal shooting over the weekend of a 37-year-old man in Minneapolis.
In downtown Los Angeles, roughly 300 protesters gathered near the federal building, protesting the immigration crackdown and the killing of Alex Pretti with shouts of “When the streets get hot, ICE melts.”
Pretti, an intensive care nurse, was killed Saturday in Minnesota. His death follows the controversial Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who — like Pretti — was shot multiple times by a federal agent amid an enforcement action.
“We stand with Minneapolis, but we know ICE’s terrorism isn’t limited to Minneapolis,” said L.A. protester Tara Garner. “They’re plaguing our city too.”
Pretti was described by top Trump administration officials as a violent “domestic terrorist” and would-be assassin. His family, neighbors and families of the veterans he treated at the Minneapolis VA medical center remembered him as kind and warm-hearted.
Thousands of protesters turned out in Minneapolis on Sunday despite the bitter cold, walking through the snow-covered streets downtown and carrying signs with slogans including “Stop killing our neighbors” and “It was murder.” They chanted, “Shut it down!” — referring to the immigration operation in the state — and “No more Minnesota nice!”
In downtown L.A. on Sunday afternoon, tensions were running high as the protest overflowed onto Alameda Street. Around 4 p.m., demonstrators cut off traffic in both directions. Los Angeles police soon arrived and ordered protesters to return to the sidewalk. The demand was met with a chant of “Pigs go home.” After about five minutes, the police vehicles retreated.
Shortly thereafter, protesters doused an American flag in lighter fluid and burned it in the street.
Around 4:45 p.m. Sunday, another standoff played out when about 30 Los Angeles Police Department officers confronted some 80 protesters in the street as a police helicopter circled overhead. The protesters chanted for about 20 minutes before exiting the street and returning to the sidewalk.
“We should all be watching the game right now,” shouted a woman in a Los Angeles Rams jacket.
In Long Beach, several hundred people protested on Sunday, spurred by the fatal agent-involved shootings in Minneapolis as well as agents being housed at hotels in the city.
Randall Cossey was among a large crowd in downtown Long Beach. The 39-year-old bartender said, “What brought everyone out here is just the feeling of being fed up with any government agency having absolute power and no accountability. ... It’s not about left or right. It’s about right or wrong.”
Dozens of protesters marched around a Hampton Inn and a Homewood Suites near the Long Beach airport that are providing housing for immigration agents. One of the hotels’ entryways was blocked by a hotel van, and as the sun set, a growing number of city police officers — on bicycles and in squad cars — kept watch as protesters chanted, “ICE out of Long Beach!”
“Our emphasis is no sleep for ICE,” said Anthony Bryson, 36, raising a bullhorn to lead chants from the sidewalk.
“The objective here is to let any business know that residents will not support their business if they’re supporting and facilitating ICE agents in any capacity, whether they’re housing them or feeding them,” said Bryson, the executive director of So Cal Uprising and a Long Beach resident. “They’re not welcome in our city. They’re not welcome in our state. What they’re doing is terrorizing.”
The federal agents have been staying in city hotels for months since the immigration raids were launched in Los Angeles in June.
At sunset, about 250 people were gathered outside El Segundo City Hall for a candlelight vigil to honor the lives of Pretti and Good. They brought roses, children in strollers, dogs and signs, including some that said: “Believe your eyes, not Trump’s lies.” Speakers recounted biographical details about the two slain Minnesotans, and a high school student recited a poem.
Three women led the crowd singing protest songs, including some that they said were making the rounds in Minneapolis. “We won’t be silent any more,” the El Segundo group chanted in unison.
One of the organizers, John Pickhaver, said the event came together as a South Bay community response. “The humanity in this country is hard to find with what we are seeing at the federal level with these immigration raids,” he told The Times.
“But we are here to stand up against that ... and just offer people hope in these dark times,” Pickhaver said. “We can do more than we think just by helping people — the Home Depot watches that some people are doing, and donating food and goods to immigrant families who are afraid to go outside. Small, ordinary things can have an extraordinary impact.”
As protests continued across the nation, hundreds marched in Los Angeles on Friday and again on Saturday, when crowds gathered first at the historic Placita Olvera marketplace. A banner fluttered above reading, “From Los Angeles to Minneapolis, stop ICE terror.”
Adi Renee, an educator who spoke at Saturday’s rally, said that the Minneapolis protests, during which thousands of workers walked off the job and hundreds of businesses shut down on Friday, had shown that labor unions could help to lead a political strike against ICE and the Trump administration.
“I’m really grateful to Minneapolis,” she said. “They’ve shown us that our public unions can call a political strike and they need to do it now.”
A speaker at the rally who identified herself as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America denounced violence by federal agents in Minnesota.
“We are here again after another shooting,” she said into a megaphone. “Our elected officials continue to fund ICE [which is] murdering and kidnapping our neighbors in the streets.”
Before Saturday’s protest, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement assailing the fatal shooting of Pretti.
“This morning we learned of yet another tragic shooting in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents,” Bass said. “This violence has to stop and the president must remove these armed federal forces from Minneapolis and other American cities.”
The Los Angeles County Republican Party cautioned against a rush to judgment in what is certain to be another highly volatile case.
“In the aftermath of any officer-involved shooting, it’s important to figure out what happened, which often is not possible to ascertain immediately,” the party’s chairman said in a statement provided to City News Service. “We were not present at the scene of this regrettable incident in Minneapolis, and neither was Mayor Karen Bass.”
Meanwhile, at least one Republican senator, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, called for an investigation into Pretti’s death, describing events in Minneapolis as “incredibly disturbing.”
Earlier Saturday, a small group of protesters gathered at Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights.
“We put this together because we know that we cannot just sit idly by while this is happening, not only to our undocumented brothers and sisters, but to the people out there that are taking to the streets to document what these corrupt acts, these barbaric and dehumanizing acts, that ICE is doing,” organizer Jordan Pena told KABC.
At Saturday’s federal building demonstration, Oscar Zarate, 30, director of external affairs for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), said that when he watched the video of Pretti’s killing, he had “no words.”
“The violence ... the complete abandonment of Alex’s humanity,” he said, “I just felt it in my soul.”
Zarate said many feel a lack of action from leaders, with House Democrats just last week failing to block a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. He and others are “tired of feeling impotent and angry.”
But he hopes people in L.A. and across the country find ways to channel their anger toward helping their community.
“I think it looks like what we saw in Minnesota [on Friday], with the general strike and the amazing mutual aid after the fires,” he said. “That’s the kind of humanity I’m looking to build.”
On Sunday evening in Long Beach, an elementary school teacher stood silent sentry outside a Chevron gas station, holding a sign that said, “No I.C.E.”
Melissa Mann, 55, said she felt the need to make a statement because of the fatal shooting of Pretti: “He was murdered,” she said.
Mann’s 14-year-old son was taking guitar lessons nearby, so she decided to use the time to protest the Trump administration and corporations that have supported him even before Pretti was killed.
Chevron donated $2 million to Trump’s inauguration committee, and stands to profit from the administration’s actions in Venezuela.
“Everyone needs to know that,” Mann said as passersby honked. “I think a lot fewer people would be getting gas here.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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