Part 2: Unilateral Use of Force

George Floyd Protests, Part 2: Unilateral Use of Force

As Mayor Eric Garcetti extended the nightly curfew every day, LAPD officers arrested protesters, often hundreds at a time, for breaking curfew. Police officers beat protesters with batons even during peaceful protests. In some protests, the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets despite the protesters begging them not to shoot.

LAPD arrested at least 2,700 people before Garcetti lifted the curfew on Thursday, June 4—they stopped releasing arrest figures after June 2. Looters constituted only about 3% to 5% of the arrests. Advocacy groups have hit the city and the LAPD with multiple lawsuits, claiming their curfew enforcement violated protesters’ freedom of speech and civil rights by arresting and holding them under squalid conditions—the LAPD announced they will not charge or fine most of the nonviolent protesters on June 7.

A woman arrested for breaking curfew and protesting in front of the Los Angeles City Hall boards a LA County Sheriff's Department bus Thursday, June 4, 2020.

Los Angeles Police Department officers on Sunset Boulevard beat unarmed and nonresistant protesters with batons Monday, June 1, 2020.

A man embraces his girlfriend on June 1 after the LAPD beat her with a baton Monday, June 1, 2020.

At least 20 police vehicles fill an entire block of Sunset Boulevard as LAPD officers arrest over 100 protesters Monday, June 1, 2020.

LAPD surround dozens of protesters Monday, June 1, 2020 after forcing them out of their cars and onto the nearby sidewalk on Sunset Boulevard.

A man protests peacefully on Sunset Boulevard on the night of Monday, June 1, 2020 breaking a countywide curfew. LAPD later fired rubber bullets at the group of protesters that he was with.

A protester mocks a LAPD officer while he and about 80 others at Grand Park await arrest Wednesday, June 3, 2020.

A Los Angeles County sheriff shoves a protester against a street light in front of the LA City Hall Wednesday, June 3, 2020. The sheriff said the protester was resisting arrest—the protester only asked to have his confiscated phone back after he was arrested alongside about 80 others protesting past curfew that night.

The protester that LASD officers restrained shouts in pain from inside a police vehicle. He said as he was arrested that the officers bent his limbs in directions that they were not supposed to go.