LOS ANGELES _ Los Angeles County was hit by another day of protests and looting as police in Santa Monica and Long Beach struggled to deal with crowds breaking into stores and officials imposed curfews they hope will help.
The most serious unrest was largely limited to Santa Monica, where looters spent hours in the city's upscale business district stealing items and setting several fires, and Long Beach, where a mall and some downtown shops were hit. There, some protesters screamed at looters, begging them to stop. The California Department of Transportation closed the 10 Freeway west at Bundy Drive to prevent people from coming into Santa Monica,
Protests in downtown Los Angeles, Huntington Beach and elsewhere were largely peaceful.
The demonstration decrying the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck, was initially peaceful. In Long Beach, hundreds of protesters, many chanting and holding signs reading "no justice, no peace" and "black lives matter" walked from the city's downtown area through Alamitos Beach, along Broadway, before circling back to downtown along Ocean Boulevard Sunday afternoon.
However, shortly after 5 p.m., hundreds of protesters began looting stores at the Pike Outlet. The crowd used hammers and threw trash can lids to smash the windows of businesses. Some protesters yelled for them to leave the stores alone. Others yelled "let's hit Nike" before running toward the popular athletic store.
Several minutes later a mob rushed back and stormed into Forever 21, slipping from clothes scattered on the floor. At By Guess a man used a hammer to smash the store door before a man intervened and asked him to stop. Suddenly those wanting to loot the store began punching the man. A woman yelled for them to stop.
Chandarley Lim, 28, stood in the middle of the street that runs through the outdoor outlet mall yelling "peaceful protest" as a reminder that the demonstration was not supposed to be about vandalism.
"This is sad man," she said of the looting. "This is not a good look. Don't let the bad examples ruin it for the rest of us."
Shortly after 6 p.m., Long Beach police declared an unlawful assembly in the area meaning that arrests would soon follow.
A similar scene unfolded in Santa Monica Sunday afternoon.
Hundreds of people walked from the Santa Monica Pier north along Ocean Avenue, carrying signs and chanting. The city issued a 4 p.m. curfew and some protesters were in a tense standoff with police, who were firing less-than-lethal weapons after some demonstrators threw objects toward them.
Shortly before 2 p.m., however, dozens of looters stormed Santa Monica Place, smashing windows of Louis Vuitton and several other stores. They left before police arrived.
Looters also ransacked the Vans at 400 Broadway, stealing shoes and skateboards from the store and storage room.
People carried merchandise past the Promenade as police guarding Third Street watched them walk by. They ran to a nearby alley, found what looked to be the back entrance to a store and swarmed inside.
Amid sirens blaring and shouts of "police!" the group ran back out of the alley, carrying shoeboxes. Some of them were picked up by a waiting car. They rushed to stuff the merchandise inside while police on motorcycles approached.
A couple blocks away, at Seventh Street and Broadway, people were seen breaking into a pharmacy, using a skateboard to shatter the window before climbing inside. Next door, people smashed the window of a jewelry store. Firefighters at a neighboring station urged residents to go inside.
Police shut down all off-ramps into Santa Monica from the 10 Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway and told people to avoid the downtown area.
In response to the unrest across the region, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva announced a countywide curfew beginning at 6 p.m. Sunday and ending at 6 a.m. Monday. Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia also announced a curfew in Long Beach from 8 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday.
Paul Cain, who owns The Britannia Pub in Santa Monica, said he called police early in the afternoon to get a report about how safe it was outside. They told him the protesters were peaceful, marching down Ocean Avenue, and that he had nothing to worry about.
What seemed like moments later, he saw waves of crowds on the street. He ushered his customers sitting on the patio inside where they watched looters storm the area.
"The people were outside eating and drinking, and all of a sudden it arrived," he said. "It happened in waves."
More than four hours later, the looting throughout Santa Monica had not lost steam. Protesters crashed store windows with hammers and ran in, taking what they could before police arrived. Store alarms and police sirens sounded throughout the area. Bystanders and drivers all slowed to watch the destruction, many holding their phones out to document what was happening. It was a lawless scene, with few obeying approaching sirens or street lights.
Inside the Britannia Pub, every so often Cain would shout and point out the window toward people carrying armloads of merchandise from the Gap and other stores.
"Take a picture of that," he said. "He must be carrying his body weight in jeans."
Protests were also underway Sunday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, where National Guard troops established a perimeter around City Hall, and in Huntington Beach.
In Huntington Beach, police declared a protest near the pier an unlawful assembly about 1 p.m., said Angela Bennett, public information officer for the Huntington Beach Police Department.
She estimated about 500 people were demonstrating and said there were no reports of violence or vandalism. Video footage showed police officers lining up to face the protesters near Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street. No arrests had been made, Bennett said.
There were more protests in downtown Los Angeles, including a march to Pershing Square. Video showed an incident in which a police vehicle hit a protester before speeding away as people threw objects at the car. The person hit did not appear to be seriously injured.
Neissa Diabate, 27, stood nearby holding a sign that read "America would not exist without the black community".
"It's actually wild that we have to be out here in the middle of a pandemic," she said. They were there for George Floyd because "enough is enough," she added.
"America has taught us that peace does not get us far," she said.
Meanwhile, on the south side of the Los Angeles Police Department's headquarters a few hundred protesters shouted "hands up, don't shoot" at a line of officers and National Guardsmen as a police helicopter orbited overhead. Cellphones rang out in the crowd with an alert about the countywide curfew.
"They changed the time. They changed the curfew ... cowards," a woman yelled using an expletive.
Earlier on Sunday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had imposed an overnight curfew for a second night in the wake of the worst unrest in the city in decades, warning millions of residents and would-be protesters that they could be arrested if they ventured outside after 8 p.m. County officials later amended the order to get people inside by 6 p.m.
The curfew is necessary to maintain order after two straight nights of looting, arson and tense clashes between police and protesters in the street, Garcetti said.
"When times demand it," the mayor said, "strong steps are required to bring peace back to our city."
Saturday's unrest eclipsed that of Friday in downtown Los Angeles. Violence extended into other parts of the city and left portions of the Grove mall in the Fairfax District ablaze. Police shot projectiles at protesters in multiple locations. Protesters threw rocks and other objects, as well as fireworks, at police.
Los Angeles police said 398 people were arrested Saturday on suspicion of crimes including burglary, looting, vandalism, failure to disperse, and firearms and curfew violations. Five LAPD officers were injured, with two of them hospitalized, officials said.
The most seriously injured officer was struck by a brick while in the Fairfax area, authorities said. The brick fractured his skull. Another officer suffered a broken arm, and another suffered a broken leg during the clashes with protesters.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore, appearing with Garcetti at a news conference at City Hall on Sunday, said the officer whose skull was fractured underwent surgery Saturday night. "I believe he will survive," Moore said.
Garcetti said people who engaged in "destruction and looting" were only hurting others in the community.
"They have not just caused chaos and damage," he said. "They are hijacking a moment and a movement."
Saturday's unrest _ which undercut a weekend meant to be focused on the reopening of restaurants, barbershops and hair salons shuttered due to the coronavirus outbreak _ spurred other cities to enact overnight curfews.
The cities of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Culver City and Torrance announced curfews for Sunday into Monday, as did the city of Santa Ana in Orange County.
"Violence, looting, and vandalism will not be tolerated in our city," Beverly Hills Mayor Lester Friedman said. "It's unfortunate that the message of the peaceful protesters has been diminished by criminal behavior."
At dawn Sunday, five National Guard military Humvees were parked at Third and Hill streets in downtown L.A. Guardsmen dressed in full combat gear stood outside shattered storefronts as the morning light revealed the damage from the days before: broken windows, trash-strewn streets and graffiti-tagged buildings.
By 7 a.m., scores of Guardsmen toting M-4 rifles marched on patrol along Broadway between Seventh and Eighth streets.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in the city and county of Los Angeles shortly before midnight, which was when he activated the National Guard.
Los Angeles County officials also proclaimed a countywide state of emergency to deal with the unrest.
"This emergency comes as we are in the midst of battling another emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic," County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said Sunday in a statement. "This taxes our resources, but not our resolve."
The proclamation will help authorities coordinate an emergency response and mutual aid and speed up the procurement of supplies, officials said. It also provides for future state and federal reimbursement of costs the county incurs.
The last time the National Guard patrolled the streets of L.A. was during the 1992 riots, which erupted after the police officers who beat black motorist Rodney King were found not guilty.
Rodney Beckwith, who goes by his artist name, Flewnt, is the manager of Resist 323 on Melrose Avenue, a store selling custom clothing and art that saw one of its windows smashed.
He spent Saturday night inside the store, where a garage door security gate was pulled down in front to protect it.
Beckwith was inside when he heard people trying to break in through the back door. He shoved a table saw against the security door.
"All I could do was try to get to the rooftop," he said. "My survival mode, get high and get out the door. I'm not going to sit down there, they're breaking through a door, they're not knocking.
"I know they're black lives matter, I'm black but ... they're doing something crazy," he said. "... I feel them, I'm with them, but at the same time I'm protecting a business."
No one was able to breach the security door and get inside.
Eli Ventov has had his store, Reloaded L.A., along Melrose for nearly 12 years. The store had just reopened Wednesday after being closed because of the pandemic.
On Saturday, as they saw the protests start to grow, workers rushed to Home Depot and got painters paper to cover the windows so no one would break in.
No one did break in that night. But in the same building, people broke into the Dr. Martens store. Around 7 p.m., someone threw a bottle with gasoline inside the store, Ventov said.
"It went from this store, to this store, to this store," Ventov said of the resulting fire, gesturing to shoe store Tony-K and then to his store.
Ventov stood across the street and watched his clothing and jewelry store burn.
"You see all your life running across your face," he said. "I can't believe it."
"I understand where they're coming from, but did you really need to come that way?"
"He stayed the whole time. We saw him on the news across the street watching his building burn down," said Ramon Pazos, who works at the store. "There's nothing we could do but watch."
On Sunday morning Ventov stood outside the blackened store, where the roof appeared on the verge of collapse and the sky was visible through patches. He grew teary-eyed as a friend embraced him and told him it would be OK.
