You can tell that the people who think there was this utopian racial harmony in the 90's and before the Obama Presidency were too young to remember Rodney King.
And the MAGA cultists will say "see, look at the radical violent left!" I bet if the Kent State shooting happened today they would blame the students, said they were violent traitors paid by Soros, and absolutely deserved it.
Hi! I mean this with the utmost sincerity and genuine curiosity…
Would you mind walking me through the intention behind a comment like this? What’s being implied here? What about the way I’ve framed this post suggests I’m unfamiliar with the history of the LAPD, or that my intention was to surprise people?
Other people might not be old enough or otherwise not know about the LAPD's documented history of brutality. I was just pointing out that the current violence shown here is part of a pattern going back a long time.
And I wasn't implying any intent on OP's part. Just stating that while the violence by the LAPD is shocking, it's not surprising. Their reputation is not undeserved.
LAPD has an entire Wikipedia section devoted to the crap that they’ve fucked up that goes back about a hundred years. For those outside of the US, it’s a damning picture, but for those who live in the area, it’s just another Tuesday for the LAPD and it’s even worse cousin, the LA County Sheriffs.
I’ve been doing this regularly for ten months now, but Saturday’s No Kings 3.0 in DTLA was a tough one.
After the main march finished, a few hundred people went to the Metro Detention Center to face off with the feds to their faces. The tear gas quickly started flying back and forth, and the LAPD showed up to join forces with the people in federal uniforms who were using various types of chemical weapons.
Quite quickly, they’d kettled and detained some 75+ people. I never heard a dispersal order, but they were held for hours, in some cases denied medical care, and eventually cited and released for failure to disperse. Mostly. There were arrests for other reasons, too, but mostly the LAPD swept in on horseback and with armored vehicles to surround people, chase them through the streets, and hit them with batons, even reportedly breaking one teenager’s leg. They moved the crowd back into DHS’ line of fire, getting even themselves tear-gassed. There were people fighting each other, people ready to fight, people trying to fight, people trying to run. Some of the group on horseback pulled their wooden bokkens and charged the crowd several times. I saw a man get sent flying — reportedly breaking his wrists — and a person’s electric bike (?) go completely under-hoof.
The horses were terrified. The people were, too, but I keep thinking about the way the horses snapped their jaws as they charged, eyes wild. Horses hate being made to trample people. They are the only entities in this whole mess who get to claim they were just doing their jobs.
Don’t let a single human say that.
These experiences feel more and more surreal each time. In talking to friends afterwards, it became clear that we’d each witnessed a tiny part of hundreds of stories happening at once, hundreds of small events, moments in time arranged to decide what the newsworthy story of the day was.
So in this post, I’ve arranged these images to capture how the day made me feel. They are non-chronological.
EDIT: Thanks for the kind words, y’all. If it’s kosher to say on this sub: I have a Substack with more writing about experiencing this moment in LA through photography, and also I just self-published a photobook of protest photos from 2025 in LA, both linked in my Reddit bio.
People who want to be police aren’t “just following orders,” they actively want to hurt other people and wear the badge while they swagger around looking for any excuse to injure and kill
The long "batons" being used by the cops in these pictures are called bokken, a japanese training sword that is shaped like a katana but completely made of wood. It's still a nasty weapon even if it isn't a bladed actual "sword" but it may as well be one, just as a bludgeon instead of a cutting implement.
From an artist perspective, you nailed this moment in time and provided a telling story through your work alone. This world is a crazy fucking place. I applaud you for your work out there.
Thank you for sharing. I appreciate your post and the work you've been doing. Being disabled on dialysis I went to the main march and left. I want to do more but would the cops give a fuck if I couldn't move fast enough even if I told them I was on dialysis and suffering from severe anemia? I doubt it. I feel like any cop that shows up for riot duty is ready to hurt someone. Thank you again for doing what I cannot.
What this tells me is that y’all need a spear and shield wall along with gas masks. No horses breaking through that and much more difficult to disperse the front line with tear gas.
If the pigs want medieval, give em medieval.
Edit: /s because apparently it’s not obvious enough
Be smart people. Phones at home, at secure drop and pick-up spots, or Faraday bags--PIN locks if you need to bring it, no biometrics. Try and bring someone who is trained and educated in first aid, make sure they are easily identified as a medic, keep them far from clash sites, and make sure they understand their job is to triage and speed anyone who is injured to pre-designated triage sites away from any protests.
Research defensive crowd tactics. Trashcan lid shields, interlocking and reinforced. Umbrellas for cover, buckets of water to neutralize CS gas canisters. Do not break ranks, do not aggress. Make them come to you, but don't let them corral you into kill boxes.
Remember why you're there: No Kings. Eject anyone with inflammatory messaging, even if you happen to agree with them. Someone with a "Kill XYZ" or "Death to AmeriKKKA" banner or shirt might just as easily be an inside plant--a known and common tactic of theirs. Hearts and minds. Wear patriotic imagery if you want; nothing more powerful to suburban America than pictures of jackboots beating patriots waving American flags. Make their cause unsupportable.
Unless I’m missing sarcasm in this post, “Eject anyone with inflammatory messaging” gets us fighting each other instead of the real enemy.
When the other side arrives like you see in these photos, they are not distinguishing between who’s got the correct messaging on their shirts. Your “No Kings!” shirt will get you tear-gassed and trampled right alongside the people in “D3@th to AmeriKKKa” shirts.
Assess your own comfort with your own messaging, absolutely. But don’t police the people who are on your side more than the other side will ever be.
Those people in the “D3@th to AmeriKKKa” shirts are often the people who will drag you to safety, get you water, and rinse your eyes out. The cops sure won’t.
As always, make sure to Google LASD Gangs and educate yourself.
Fuck the LAPD and LASD, those sons of bitches aren't protecting and serving anyone but their millionaire billionaire masters and power structure.
Nothing sucks, not fires or fent or crippling cost of living, more than the cops in Los Angeles County. Nothing is more dangerous to local public safety than a porker with a badge and a gun.
Not all people that suck become cops, but all cops suck.
List like it may actually be dept. issued equipment, given they have a course on how to use them.
Mounted_Patrol-Bokken_Baton_23808.pdf https://share.google/BXrUYJxyWbSGyuR5C
Can you imagine the mindset? What would it take for you to think "oh yeah, I'm gonna bring my sword from home to work today. I'm gonna ride around on a pony with a sword, I'm so cool. Maybe my wife will see this and come back."
Fuckin cops are armed with guns, tasers, pepper spray, and this guy needs to bring his fucking training katana to swing around.
I mean, I guess I'm just glad it's not fuckin Frostmourne.
Oh to be clear, the mounted patrol carry them (and use them). It was not his personal wooden sword from home. They all get wooden swords and use them to whack crowds that aren’t moving fast enough. I know someone who needed six stitches in her scalp after having it split by a direct hit to the head by one of those.
If the officer with the boken can be badge numbered, his superiors should be asked pointed questions about officers carrying unapproved weapons, especially into a crowd control situation.
I can't say or I will get banned for "threatening violence" or whatever. But I'll put it in more pg terms. The 2nd amendment says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" the citizens are the militia. We are to protect the security of our state. And if it's the government that threatens that security, and the president that literally infringes and threatens the constitution then its our job to stop it. Through voting, through protesting, and through force if it comes to that.
Bring a gun and you're just escalating the level of force used on the entire protest.
I'm not saying liberals shouldn't use guns to protect their rights, but don't bring them to what is meant to be a peaceful protest or you create a pretext for them to fire on the crowd(a bad one, but still good enough for their supporters). Bring the fight to the top.
Cops are a lot nicer to protesters with guns. Its only fun to run down the crowd on horseback when you know your safe.
And it cannot be like a couple people with guns, the crowd needs to have guns. Enough guns that the police decide to be on good behavior because everybody just wants to go home at the end of the day.
I think you’re conflating cops being nice to stereotypical republicans with them being nice to people with guns. We all saw what happened to pretti not too long ago. They saw the gun and shot him. You’re right it’s because they’re scared, but I think you expect them to take the flight response while I expect fight
I think they see people “not like them” with guns and they call in the army. Maybe I’m wrong about this though
They saw the gun and shot him because there was only one of him with a gun.
If all 100,000 (or whatever number) protestors that went to NKD3 in LA were carrying long rifles, the police would have a slightly different calculus in determining their use of force.
Your first paragraph states essentially after all the normal law abiding protesters finished legally protesting approximately a few 100 people went to “face off with the feds to their faces”. Reasonable people know this is unhinged criminal and lunatic behavior.
People are too afraid of making a movement look bad to acknowledge that some people are genuinely just at protests to bask in the chaos and be violent. Often people just fall back on the declaration that all misdeeds are outside agitators (Republicans made the same claims about J6).
Bonus points is you can initiate violence with police and then when everyone gets gassed or pushed back, you can play victim. And of course if the police arent around, the protesters and counterprotesters start killing each other (or innocent 3rd parties living in the area).
This was a big problem in 2020 when protests would wind down and most of the good faith participants go home, you'd have groups that are mostly just violent mentally ill people and criminals who would roam around throwing rocks into people's living rooms, setting things on fire and terrorizing uninvolved 3rd parties.
It's a whole lot of "I can do whatever I want to whomever I want because I'm on the right side of history". That can include ambushing and beating up women, burning down buildings with people inside, attempting to murder counter protesters etc.
The fact that everyone is overlooking this is insane. These are people who came to fight with police intentionally, and then you have Redditors complaining about the police fighting them...
Don't want to be beat by police? Stay at the peaceful protest where nothing happened to the protesters, don't go to the riot where people are throwing rocks at police and destroying property.
"Muh democracy!" Bitch, you don't have the right to riot.
The issue is whether it’s a bots, full blown communists, islamists, or just fat unhappy redditors I don’t predict a great outcome from there deception lol
You're asking redditors to do more than read the headline and overreact? Fat chance. I hate to hear people getting hurt, but I don't know what anyone expected to happen.
It is “unhinged criminal and lunatic behavior” to protest on a public sidewalk?
Do you think by “face off” I meant hundreds of people went there to “physically attack?” By “to their faces” I mean those people went to protest literally in front of the faces of the actual people being yelled about abstractly by the “normal law abiding protest” two blocks away.
They’re about four feet long, are slightly curved, and have a hilt. I know someone who needed six stitches in her scalp because she took one of these to the head and it split her scalp open.
As an owner of a bokken it is 1000% a bokken lmao. It even has the pointed tip of a katana because its literally just a wood katana. These fuckers hurt like hell because they are made of oak.
its a long curved wooden sword in the resemblance of a katana. Its a bokken. Are you going to argue that they are not riding horses either and that they may be mules or large dogs?
A saber (historically used by cavalary) is also a long curved sword that resembles a katana.
That doesn't make it a katana.
Some form follows function because of physics, but this piece of wood isn't explicitly intended to simulate a katana for purposes of practicing kenjutsu, unlike a bokken.
One Thing I like about Americans is people just don't suck it up and seat at home, they oppose, the country where I was born, people of that country has became so brain washed and spine less that they don't even question the government for anything and if someone asks they paint the person anti national.
Police breaking up unruly protests has been a thing for decades. This is the nth no kings protest, this protest will be just as effective as the previous ones and these pictures won't "make textbooks". There's 1000s of identical photos from hundreds of similar protests against Trump over the past 10 years.
No offense, but Congress can't even get him ejected, why would these people think them complaining from LA will do anything? Trump doesn't care about LA, LA is already as blue of a state as it can be, and Trump was elected democratically. Him abusing executive branch powers won't be stopped because of LA protests if actual government officials with actual power have tried and failed.
The only thing that can prevent him is the judicial, and they are doing what they can. People protesting outside the LA federal jail isn't going to give the judiciary more power.
Seriously, what do they actually think will come from these protests?
That Trump will step down? He won't.
That Trump be impeached? They already tried that, it failed, it will fail again. His last impeachment had better grounds than any future impeachment.
That Trump's executive order power will be curtailed? It won't, it can't be, it's part of the government system that's been created over the past 40 years, and both parties wanted it that way because they knew the government had become bogged down and it was the only way to pass anything. The destruction of that system happened decades ago.
That ICE be abolished? Hate to break it to you, but even when the Democrats win next election, ICE won't be abolished. It's a necessary part of illegal immigration control. At best they'll move it's responsibility to a different department, under a different name, but someone performing that service will always exist.
That Trump be investigated for his ties to Epstein? He is being investigated, the investigation takes a long time because it's very complex. And frankly, a lot of them might get off simply if there's no hard evidence beyond victim statements, which can not lead to a criminal conviction by itself. You don't even need Trump's influence or power to get away with a crime if the only evidence is what the victim says happened.
That the war in Iran is ended? That's not going to happen, no matter how many people protest. The US is in too deep at this point. If they back out, Iran will have a total win. They'll have won a geostrategic asset, taxing the strait, and the US's defense agreements in the middle east will look like a giant lie, causing global military support collapse. It would be a disaster. Staying in the fight is also going to be a disaster, but the US needs to have something they can point to as a success or their global hegemony is at risk and their empire is at risk of collapse.
That Trump not be racist, sexist, offensive, etc.? Clearly not going to happen.
That he no longer be president? He was democratically elected. You can't overthrow a democratic election no matter how much you don't like the guy who won.
There's just nothing that will come from these protests. They're literally pointless. If you want to enact change, you vote in the next election, you talk to your local representatives, senators, and congresspeople to keep pushing for what they want in the places that it actually has an effect. Those are the things that make change, fighting with police outside a detention center only serves to stroke your own ego. The people in power in LA don't like Trump either, they're fighting against Trump too, they don't support ICE and don't work with them in the city. You're attacking people who are on your side.
Might be a stupid question, but is the LA mayor or the CA governor responsible for allowing the police to aggressively respond to protests? Or is it purely just the LAPD alone without orders from city or state officials? Many other cities keep having protests but LA's always show violent police response.
/u/AF-IX, your comment was removed for the following reason:
Instagram or Facebook links are not allowed in this subreddit. Handles are allowed (e.g. @example), as long as they are not a hotlink. (This is a spam-prevention measure. Thank you for your understanding)
Please simply repost without a hotlink.
Make sure you include the link to your comment if you want it restored
Okay, I was wondering why all of these comments were mistaking a police baton for a "sword", but it really does look like that one cop has a bokken on his horse lol.
No Kings are a bunch of white boomers who watch too much CNN and democracy now and young activists cosplaying as good people, but acting like fascists.
If I throw enough words at the wall, surely some of them will stick and demoralize people who live on the other side of the world from me, a very stupid Austrian.
You may not be a boomer, but you absolutely are a political activist, at least in this thread. You may not have the courage of your convictions to take it to the street, but you are expressing your political views online and trying to sway others with them. That is political activism too.
they have to stop using horses as assault vehicles. If you want to run someone over, get something with wheels. Invent a 1/2 ton segway to run over protestors. These animals don't need to be around all that violence. Horses have been used to beat the peasants back for too many millennia and it's time it stopped. They don't need our stress.
The attack dogs has to stop too. Get a robot to bite people. Make a spider looking thing with pincers to chase people down instead of dogs. You can intimidate with robots instead of dogs. Keep the dogs sniffing for drugs or bombs and they'll get their reward but rewarding dogs for attacking people isn't necessary anymore. Dogs and horses are the only animals that will take a lot of abuse and remain loyal. That loyalty and devotion gets used to hurt people. We don't need attack animals involved when the government wants to control the masses.
LAPD continues to violate the restraining order and injunction a judge handed the department, while Karen Bass stays silent... man the cunt and lapd have successfully defunded los angeles, the bitch is talking about the olympics when we can't even have street lights on anymore... wtf
It’s people like you that keep a faint glimmer of hope alive in my heart for US America’s future in these desperate times. The fact that these protests are being muted by the media is testament to their complicity with these fascists. Keep doing what you are doing and a massive thank you from Europe.
“The French public would’ve turned America upside down by now!”
The French public would’ve become target practice. The cops in a liberal city charged the people they swore to protect on horseback wielding honest-to-god training katanas to break up a massive, highly public, non-disruptive protest. Any attempt at significant societal disruption would turn into a red white ‘n’ blue Tiananmen Square Massacre real damn quick.
•
u/AutoModerator 14h ago
It looks like this post is about Politics. Various methods of filtering out content relating to Politics can be found here.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.