Woman arrested for writing with chalk on street spurs violence
Police cordoned off the 5th and Spring streets after Art Walk became unruly Thursday night.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — About 20 people were arrested and over 100 LAPD officers ended up lining the streets of Spring Street between 4th and 6th after rocks and bottles were reportedly thrown at police during an OccupyLA event called Chalk Walk during ArtWalk Thursday night.
Three officers were injured, LAPD Sgt. Ana Aguirre confirmed to Blogdowntown.
In a scene the LA Times called a melee, Occupy members began writing in chalk on Spring around 7:30pm. Not soon afterwards tensions rose resulting in one woman being arrested for what Occupy calls "chalking" and what the LAPD calls vandalism.
"One [of the arrested] was in fact a vandalism [charge] that involved some chalk," Aguirre said, adding that "power washing" will be required to remove the chalk.
Messages including "Kill Cops" were written on the sidewalk and streets, the paper reports.
Nancy Casanova, a journalist from L.A., was at ArtWalk with her 13-year-old brother when she saw a crowd growing around a line of police officers, she told Blogdowntown. Soon mayhem broke out.
"There was a girl who was drawing between the officers," Casanova explained. "This officer saw her and grabbed her arm. Her boyfriend stepped in. The crowd chanted to the police to pressure them not to arrest her but it didnt work. The officer shoved her boyfriend out of the way. The girl tried to resist arrest. They put her on the ground and I took that picture. Then they took her into custody and that's when I saw bottles flying."
Aguirre said those arrested were being held on charges from vandalism to battery on police officer to failure to disperse.
Officer Karen Rayner of the LAPD told KCAL during their live tv coverage that a group decided to take over the intersection of 5th and Spring around 8:30pm. After officers arrived to disperse the group "it became very rowdy and disruptive, so we did call for reinforcements."
Casanova said she witnessed several brawls, one was caused by young men who appeared to be gang members who were taunting the police. "These were not Occupiers," she pointed out.
"This is a night that's usually for the ArtWalk folks and it's usually a peaceful event. For some reason this group decided to cause a disturbance," Rayner said, who added that an ambulance was called for someone who was hit by a skateboard. .
A Facebook event called "Chalk Walk + Get Out of Jail" invited people Downtown to protest. "11 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ARRESTED IN THE LAST MONTH FOR WRITING WITH CHALK ON A SIDEWALK," the Facebook page read. "THIS IS NOT A CRIME. THIS IS HARASSMENT AND AN ATTEMPT TO STIFLE DISSENT. WE WILL CHALK IT OUT ALL OVER ARTWALK LETTING PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THE DANGERS OF CHALKING."
Needless to say, Twitter was abuzz with reports from the scene.
abacor (@abacor) on July 13, 2012, at 12:23AM – #1
saw this going down right as it was happening.
saw plenty of sidewalk artists happily drawing penises and flowers and not getting into trouble.
saw - easily 80 people: teen boys, "art delinquents," and hipsters with protest signs taking over an intersection and directly antagonize LAPD, throwing shit and shouting angrily.
saw 20 or so young teen boys run away from the crowd and at me and my puppy so i had to duck into an apartment building front door for safety.
things began continued to get tenser and more violent so i left the area right as riot police and helicopters moved in. i didn't want to be at ground zero and get caught in crossfire.
Kara DeBenedetto on July 13, 2012, at 01:03AM – #2
Soooo basically me in picture # 10... in the green filming the girl being taken down...literally like tackled by the LAPD....was nuts...im going to upload all the footage on youtube... also i got to speak with one of the original members of the occupy movement .. filmed him telling all about why the chalk walk actually took place... its a reallllly interesting story.
Ernie on July 13, 2012, at 02:18AM – #3
So the stoner/ idiots at Occupy LA decided to ruin LA Artwalk by leaving their protest at Pershing Square. Since nobody was paying them any attention they decided to invade Art-walk and get the attention they wanted over some stupid sidewalk chalk issue. Of course by then everyone was drunk at Art walk and started throwing bottles at the cops and writing on the streets KILL COPS (shown live on TV)...another black eye for The artwalk
zeMinimalist (@zeMinimalist) on July 13, 2012, at 07:04AM – #4
abacor is right. I live at 5th and Spring and had a front-row seat to it all. LAPD were having 10's of objects thrown at them including glass, the young teens were purposely walking into police lines trying to start something while their friends were filming, a girl was dancing in front of the police line doing a strip tease while a friend was filming her, a guy in white was dancing in front of them trying to get the police excited while he was filming the police. With a front-row seat, what happened here is the police were ready (as they should be with this group of terrorists) just in case something happened. The terrorists' primary focus quickly became to instigate a fight while filming the LAPD response. All these occupy LA terrorists should be jailed as they're doing nothing now but trying to start fights and ruin everyday life for the 99% with their antics. Lots of local commerce for the 99% was lost last night and lots of the 99% couldn't enjoy the streets thanks to a very small but vigilant group of kids trying to start fights with police. Adam Carolla describes this group of people very well in a youtube video, "Adam Carolla explains the OWS Generation"
Pershing was a square on July 13, 2012, at 08:09AM – #5
I'm soooo sick of occupy. Trashing the parks, screwing events like artwalk. What's the point? Whatever original goals they had, defending "chalking" is pretty freakin stupid. That's their goal? Some kind of tactical media war? It's clear that occupy has devolved into nothing but hooliganism. Tea party buttheads might wear stupid hats and be morons, but at least they're organizing and got other morons elected. Those elected morons in the House are now impacting the entire country. Meanwhile occupy wastes what little goodwill and sympathy it has left on stupid things like this, screwing downtowners in the process.
LAofAnaheim on July 13, 2012, at 08:46AM – #6
Wow, you're headline makes it sound that we should be symphathetic to the woman. Well, why was the woman arrested and why did she resist arrest? Occupy was expected to do a SIDEWALK chalk demonstration, thus not disturbing the roads, however, they chose to disturb the peace and police were needed. Blocking roads is a crime. So if you do something illegal, the police can come up and tell you to leave and if you resist arrest the police can use some force to make you move. Now if you do battery against police, then that's another crime.
Occupy destroyed our Civic Park, held our ports hostage, caused riots in downtown LA and you're still symphathetic to this "movement". Occupy is actually hurting their initial cause and it energizes the most of us who are the 99% to vote against their interests.
Win your battles at the ballot box like the Tea Party did, not causing mayhem. Occupy lost a lot of respect last night.
Kara DeBenedetto on July 13, 2012, at 11:47AM – #7
The protest was actually a combination of occupy but it was also in support of a 19 year old boy that got arrested not too long ago for doing sidewalk chalk...thats why its called sidewalk chalk+ get out of jail free or something like that.. i spoke to one of the main leaders of this endeavor... it was meant to me harmless until others jumped it and lapd went crazy.I went to art walk expecting to just wonder around looking at art and instead ended up in the middle of a riot...
Ran Fleming on July 13, 2012, at 12:52PM – #8
Welcome to the world of downtown L.A., which despite all appearances was not always a playground for the well-off from the West side and Iowa.
Now that the descendants of the people who created Skid Row by driving the downtrodden, undesirables and untouchables into the basin of the city have decided to claim downtown, they are upset that the force they unleashed, upon cleaning up Skid Row by force, are antsy for action. Like that Monty Python skit whereby cars are crushing people and the city, unable to control the problem, hires a giant cat to destroy them only to find the cat becomes bored and starts eating buildings, and in turn is dispatched by a monumental hand, which itself goes out of control, so too are the new denizens of downtown finding that they have created a monster in the LAPD after it has done the one thing to make downtown amenable after more than a century of being the trash can for Los Angeles.
If anything, you people should appreciate that the news media is only calling it a "disturbance" (above), a "confrontation" (ABC News), or a "protest" instead of what it was: a riot.
As a former newspaperman (one who collected a hefty check from the LAPD after being shot twice while merely photographing the Monday violence of the DNC2K on the other side of town back in 2000), I know riots and have been caught up in more than a few. Of the ones in Southern CA at which I was present, all "occurred" in historically under-served areas and was always instigated by unlawful police action. Now that same force is being turned on the burgeoning numbers of self-entitled lofts that have invaded the LAPD's uncontested turf and the second-meanest LAPD division in all of SoCal. It's a lesson to be learned that those who have always lived in a bubble are learning the hard way.
There was a reason that Artwalk founder Bert Green stepped down, then closed his gallery during Artwalk evenings, and finally moved out of the Rosslyn—and all the way to Detroit. I'll leave it to you people to figure it out after you get your Starbucks coffees and gather on your rooftop parks to mumble about the latest Artwalk "disturbance."
Pershing was a square on July 13, 2012, at 02:01PM – #9
@ran Fleming. Your insular rant assumes people living downtown are against the police, which I don't think is true across the board. It's the occupy people and the crap that always seems to follow them that aren't wanted here.
Ran Fleming on July 13, 2012, at 02:12PM – #10
"Terrorists" is a term used by those who have never experienced terrorism.
As a former tenant of the Valuta building (at 548 S. Spring) before it was turned into a loft, and as a former downtown citizen (two decades ago), I departed to take care of matters in NYC—and lost my fiancée on 11 Sept 2001. I know terrorism.
The west-coast OWS are morons, clowns and what-not, but to call them "terrorists" is no less moronic. Moreover, who among you can recall the events of August 2000 along Spring Street between 4th and 6th? Many of you live in the very buildings from which bottles, masonry and furniture was thrown. What that means is that downtown has changed radically, or the same people complaining now, were the ones responsible for the rain of "terrorist"-ic items upon the LAPD SWAT team members' heads and trucks. Had it not been for the USPS office (which back then was inset and not flush with the building above it) I would have been hit with furniture from above while photographing it.
So cut the hyperbolic abuse of terms about which one knows little to nothing. To do so implies that dogs are terrorists (after all, I watched them "destroy [your] civic park"—Pershing Square—and politicians are terrorists—they destroyed Speaker's Square, which is now Pershing Square—and the developers are terrorists—they destroyed the sidewalks in the 1980s to make widen the roads for private motor vehicles that too many of you use in downtown now—which makes many of you accomplices to terrorism, I imagine.
downtown vibe on July 13, 2012, at 03:29PM – #11
Ran Fleming is absolutely wrong about one thing. The damage caused by the riot last night had nothing to do with his so called "cleaning up Skid Row by force". Those living on Skidrow do not riot. Occupy LA has nothing to do with Skidrow or the residence downtown, who are guilty of nothing but trying to create a community out of a wasteland.
Occupy LA clearly targeted a successful community event in order to get the attention of the media. In what world do you think sitting in the middle of the street taunting the police won't get you arrested?
Regardless of their claimed intentions, OccupyLA announed to the world that downtown would be a place for lawlessness and chaos Thursday night. They CAUSED hundreds of hooligans and GANGBANGERS to show up during Artwalk with, not chalk, but SPRAY PAINT. I watched them from my windows.
This is called inciting a riot.
By targeting a community event they endagered the lives of residents, and tourists who had nothing to do with their OccupyLA movement.
A message to the OccupyLA followers:
Get educated about the system. Decide what it is you want to protest, and do it strategically. You are shooting yourselves in the foot by pissing off innocent people who might have initially been sympathetic to your cause.
By the way... you are not the 98%. We are.
downtown vibe on July 13, 2012, at 03:50PM – #12
Two more things:
Firstly, you will notice that I did not defend the LAPD. Although I am glad they took action last night, the Central Divsion of the LAPD is a cesspool of corruption. Believe NOTHING they spin to the media.
Secondly, you are witnessing one of the costs of building a neighborhood economy based on the sale of alcohol. Mixing anarchists with a streetful of drunks is like throwing a match on a haystack.
Ran Fleming on July 14, 2012, at 07:09PM – #13
@Pershing was a square and the rest of you who are unable to connect the dots and think that the LAPD's actions are unconnected to Skid Row as well as the history of how downtown came to be:
Inferring that my "rant" implies people are against the police can only mean that you know little to nothing about urban planning, social control and the history of downtown Los Angeles in particular. I suggest you read Morrow Mayo's 1933 title "Los Angeles" and then follow that up with a comprehensive bit of research of the Manhattan Institute, "Broken Windows" and Heather MacDonald. After that, a thorough dessert of the various authors cited in the Urban Dictionary's definition of "gentrification."
Until then, please do keep to blogging, and get back to me in a decade when you and your ilk have been priced out of downtown L.A. despite the work you have done to make it less "edgy." Moreover, if you have missed one of the primary culprits behind how all this is and has been moving—the recently "disbanded" CRA—then you would do well to stay out of the argument and research it before the third stage is underway; this is the beginning of the second stage and it will only be a few more years that many of you are gone from the area.
The assumption that I am one of the OWS, or the 99%, or the 98%—I am not, and like Bert Green (whom none of you appear to know, let alone understand his role in the artwalk's conception) moved out of downtown long ago—only corroborates your ignorance.
Lastly you will have noticed that in my argument I clearly stated my concerns regarding the media refusing to it a riot. My suggestion to you lot is to learn how to read, then learn reading comprehension. After that, please take up some recommended reading as suggested above.