Protest Outside Mayor Garcetti’s House Ends With Unprovoked Police Violence, One Arrest
By: Kevin Varzandeh
Tags: Lapd, Police Brutality, BlackLivesMatter, Eric Garcetti, News

“They repeatedly deadnamed me. I was originally taken to a men’s facility and held in solitary confinement for 3 hours,” Penn said. When friends called the station to make sure she was taken to a women’s facility, officers derisively mocked the importance of respecting Penn’s gender identity.

According to a 2013 report by the Anti-Violence Project, trans people are 3.7 times more likely to experience police violence than cisgender victims. Trans people are seven times more likely to experience physical violence when interacting with the police. LAPD has a history of inflicting verbal, physical, and sexual abuse on trans women and gender nonconforming people. Most recently, LA Taco and the LA Times documented numerous instances of abuse during last summer’s protests.

After Penn was arrested, organizers scrambled to find out where she was being held and what she was being charged with. Officers were giving conflicting information and unprofessional attitudes to callers. While Penn was in custody, NBC Los Angeles published a story titled, “Protestor Arrested on Suspicion of ‘Lynching’ at Garcetti’s Residence.” The story was written by City News Service (CNS), a wire service that often publishes pro-police stories with no byline on local TV news outlets.

As of publishing time, the headline on NBCLA’s website has been changed to “Protester Arrested at Mayor Garcetti’s Residence” following pushback from readers, however the Tweet retains the original title. (Source: Twitter via @NBCLA)

The article itself reads like a police press release. The only quote in the piece is from an LAPD Media Relations officer. It goes on to define “lynching” as “the crime of removing someone from the lawful custody of a peace officer by means of a riot,” citing California Penal Code 405a. That section of the penal code is not, in fact, known as “lynching.”

California legislators unanimously voted to strike the offensive term from the penal code in 2015 after the arrest of a black activist at a BLM protest. Holly Mitchell, now LA County Supervisor-Elect, wrote the bill.

This raised the question of why such a provocative, racially charged term was used by CNS and published by NBCLA in relation to an arrest made at a Black Lives Matter protest. According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, CNS published their story directly from what they were told by LAPD, evidently unaware that “lynching” is not in the penal code, or that police are known to lie to shape narratives. This would explain why the story lacked quotes from any eyewitnesses or any of the videos of police violence circulating on social media at the time.

Furthermore, NBCLA credulously published the story without basic fact checking. As of this writing, their tweet about the story is still live. As I wrote for KNOCK.LA last week, local TV news frequently boosts pro-police narratives in its reporting of police violence at protests.

The process of police propaganda being laundered as news by local TV stations unfolded before Penn had even been released from custody, indicating that the events of the entire day may have been premeditated.

It’s easy to imagine the police deciding they were going to make arrests Sunday, knowing they were going to call the charges “lynching” at a Black Lives Matter event, and then passing the story to friendly, uncritical media outlets to disseminate via platforms where people would not read past the provocative headline. This would be used to discredit BLM-LA and its demands to block Mayor Garcetti from Biden’s administration. Garcetti, tired of sustained protests (and his own unforced errors) bringing national attention to his inept leadership as Mayor, would then sign off on all of the above.

This is a far more likely series of events than what the police and their allies at NBCLA put forth: that Jamie Penn — elected official, protest marshal, and mutual aid organizer — incited a riot, a claim easily refuted by the dozens of videos and eyewitness accounts from the scene.

Personal anecdote about Jamie Penn (Source: Twitter via @phillipsclariel)

As of this writing, several local elected officials have condemned the LAPD’s response, including US House Representative Jimmy Gomez, State Assembly members Miguel Santiago and Wendy Carrillo, and LA City Councilmember and Councilmember-Elect Mike Bonin and Nithya Raman. However, none explicitly called for Penn’s felony charges to be dropped. Mayor Garcetti and District Attorney George Gascon, who has recently promised to reopen several investigations into police killings, were notably silent.

On Sunday night, at least 100 unmasked right-wing protestors gathered directly in front of Mayor Garcetti’s house, demanding businesses reopen.

Source: Twitter via @emilyytayylor

One report indicates that three officers were on scene and the crowd eventually dispersed, perhaps because of the cold. The ordinance that requires protestors to keep moving, which LAPD enforced Sunday morning, was not enforced Sunday night. No batons were used, and no arrests were made.

We’re always looking for new LA stories. To share yours, reach out to us at: pitches@knock.la

If you have sensitive information to share, email us at knocklatips@protonmail.com

KNOCK.LA and its writers unfortunately still live under capitalism — but not for long, if we have anything to say! Thanks to readers like you, KNOCK.LA is able to keep you informed on local politics and uplift marginalized voices in LA. Join us in fighting the good fight and donate to KNOCK.LA’s Patreon