On Wednesday, June 11, I attended a not-for-profit board meeting downtown in a building on Alameda Street near Union. This is near where the Waymo autonomous vehicles were set on fire a few days earlier.
Normally, it takes me about an hour and 15 minutes to drive there, but on that morning, traffic was light and I made the journey in only 45 minutes. I took the Pasadena Freeway, getting off on Hill Street in Chinatown. The place was deserted. As I made my way to Alameda Street it was clear that, although there was a high police presence, it was not a high-profile presence. It was similar to the traffic cop who hides in the bushes waiting to catch speeders — you can’t see him, but you know he is there.
Alameda Street is commonly clogged with homeless people living in tents. There were none. There were some pedestrians walking about, but for the most part it was like a normal day with fewer people. What was conspicuous was the police helicopter hovering overhead at a low altitude. The other thing that amazed me was the sheer amounts of graffiti everywhere. Everything that could be tagged had spray paint on it. Almost all of the graffiti contained two-letter phrases starting with the F word followed by either “ICE” or “TRUMP.”
As I entered the building, people were in good spirits. I joked with the security guard as I signed in. We conducted our board meeting as usual and three hours later (mid-afternoon) I returned to my car in the parking lot. As I drove out of the parking lot, I noticed that the wall on a building across the street was painted black and was decorated with some sort of mural, but I could not figure out what was on the mural. Then as the traffic light changed, the image in the mural jumped out at me — it was high-class graffiti saying “(expletive deleted) ICE.” This was not hastily drawn graffiti; some artist must have spent hours painting this. I suspect that it will be painted over soon, if not already.
I then turned left onto Alameda driving toward City Hall and the federal building. Holy cow! There was an armada of police vehicles. No more traffic cops hiding in the bushes. This was a high-profile L.A. Police Department, L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol show of strength. Alameda was closed just before the Hollywood Freeway. So, I turned right and drove on Arcadia Street, which parallels and overlooks the freeway. In the next two blocks, I saw some really amazing sights. Looking to my left was the Hollywood Freeway with three on- and off-ramps. Each ramp had at least 20 CHP cars parked on them and there were about 20 CHP officers at the end of each ramp. There was no way any protester was going to make it onto the freeway.
I then looked to my right and saw a parking lot displaying a sign that said “PARKING $20.” The lot was filling up with patrons who had parked, paid their $20 and were taking protest signs out of the trunk. It seems as though capitalism is alive and well in downtown Los Angeles.
I then turned left and crossed over the freeway and drove toward the business district. Every intersection had one to four police cars parked at the corners and there was a very heavy police presence. There also must have been at least a dozen parked television news vans looking for a story to report. Other than the police, the streets were deserted. Even the homeless people were not present. I drove up and down several blocks past the office buildings in which I worked during my career. I felt totally safe.
I finally drove west to Glendale Boulevard, which I took to get on the northbound Hollywood Freeway. When I got on the freeway, traffic was heavy rush-hour stop-and-go traffic. This was another sign of normalcy.
My takeaway was that the local police have the city under control. The actual area of protests is limited to a few blocks. This is nothing like the riots of 1965 or 1992. As of the time I am writing this, there is no apparent need for the National Guard or the Marines to be present as the local authorities seem to have the situation under control.
Jim de Bree is a Valencia resident.
