After four days of protests, shopkeepers in downtown Los Angeles began Tuesday to sweep up glass, board up windows and try to make sense of the violence that erupted during the demonstrations against immigration raids near the heart of the city.
Around Little Tokyo and other downtown L.A. neighborhoods, workers and business owners woke Tuesday to fresh graffiti on government buildings and businesses, shattered shop windows and an increased police presence. Many businesses remained closed during the protest. Some reopened for the first time Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Police Department reported Tuesday that 96 people were arrested during the previous night for failure to disperse in the downtown area. Additionally, one person was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, another on suspicion of resisting arrest, one allegedly over vandalism and 14 on suspicion of looting, according to the LAPD. Two L.A. police officers who were injured and transported to a hospital were treated and released.
Workers were spotted Tuesday morning installing plywood over broken windows and scrubbing at graffiti — primarily obscene attacks aimed at President Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The Theatre Jewelry Center and several adjacent businesses were struck by vandals who shattered windows and broke display cases overnight Monday, according to business owners in the neighborhood.
It’s unclear whether items were stolen from any of the businesses.
“There is a lot of anxiety, frustration in downtown right now,” said jeweler Raz Tatanian, a downtown tenant at a nearby building who said a group of people also broke into at least two separate businesses on 7th Street.
“These are the actions of opportunistic hoodlums who don’t care about the immigrants,” he said. “Yes, protest against ICE, but don’t do it by stealing from these people’s livelihoods.”
Tatanian’s sentiments were echoed by several downtown shopkeepers who said they supported the protests but denounced the violence and property damage that accompanied the latest demonstrations.
Foot traffic was sparse Tuesday morning on South Broadway, a street normally teeming with shoppers and pedestrians. A T-Mobile store was boarded up with wood planks, and other storefronts were closed or had their metal gates pulled down.
The El Pollo outlet on Broadway and 3rd Street had been closed for the last two days and reopened Tuesday at 9 a.m., said Britney Abila, who has been working as a cashier at the location for the last year.
“It’s been very scary for my cookers especially,” she said, adding that the workers were scared both about the protests and the ICE raids.
Nearby, Monty Bhavsar, owner of the perfume and accessories store Bargain Line 2, swept away broken glass from a display case in his store window Tuesday morning.
He said he received an alert from his security company around 12:30 a.m., notifying him that someone had broken his window. He called his landlord to report the break-in, but said his landlord told him that a group of people also was trying to break into several other storefronts connected to the same building at Hill and 7th streets.
When he arrived downtown, Bhavsar said he spotted hundreds of people outside his business. He could do nothing but watch.
Los Angeles police eventually dispersed the crowd, Bhavsar said.
He remained at his business until around 4 a.m.
“It’s such a mess. What are you accomplishing here by doing this?” he asked, pointing to the broken glass. “I support protesting. I’m Indian, an immigrant too. I’m a U.S. citizen now. We dream of coming to Los Angeles, and then this happens? It’s lawless.”
The T-Mobile store on South Broadway had been broken into during the protests, said Carlos T, a cashier at Blue Bottle Coffee across the street who declined to give his full name. The coffee retailer was closed Monday as a precaution and reopened Tuesday morning, he said.
Even downtown business owners who were spared severe damage were upset and trying to make sense of the destruction.
Kazumi Tsuji, a shop owner in Little Tokyo, walked around her business and surrounding buildings with a handful of burning sage. “It’s to keep away the evil spirits,” she said.
Her shop was not damaged when police and protesters made their way through Little Tokyo on Monday evening. But around the corner from her shop, a group of what appeared to be masked teenagers smashed a glass door with a skateboard near the Shoe Palace.
“I’m OK with protests,” she said, “but setting fires, destroying businesses, all of that seems like people who just want to start chaos.”
