A riot cop heckled by young protesters responded to their wave of verbal abuses by asking them to define the words they ricocheted at him.
Citizen journalist Lane Kendall shared footage of the encounter on social media Monday as the Los Angeles anti-ICE protests entered the fourth day.
A group of masked demonstrators, likely in their early 20s, met gathered in a public park to protest against immigrations officers ‘taking their families’.
Kendall’s footage shows how the outraged youth, who appeared to remain relatively peaceful with the exception of their vulgar language, yelled at an officer who was seemingly encouraging them to disperse from the area.
As the group became increasingly aggressive with the officer, he bluntly told them ‘there’s people dying out there because we’re here’.
However, the protesters appeared disinterested in how their actions impacted community resources and continued to scream and hurl profanities at the officer.
He tried again to get them to leave before conceding: ‘As long as you feel okay with yourself that people are dying out here.’
‘As long as you feel ok with capitalism, racist, imperialist f***ing state, that’s all you man,’ a protester yelled back, but the officer responded with a clever question: ‘Do you even know what that means?’
‘Yes b***h, I’m in college,’ the young man shouts.
A group of masked demonstrators, likely in their early 20s, met gathered in a public park to protest against immigrations officers ‘taking their families’. The outraged youth yelled at an officer who was seemingly encouraging them to disperse from the area
‘As long as you feel ok with capitalism, racist, imperialist f***ing state, that’s all you man,’ a protester yelled back, but the officer responded with a clever question: ‘Do you even know what that means?’
The officer encouraged the protester to ‘explain it me’ but the college student could not provide him with a coherent answer.
‘Imperial f***ing state, as in you know f***ing – where the f*** that we are,’ the protester says.
The cop doubled down on his request: ‘I said, explain to me the definition.’
‘The definition, if you’re expanding your territory all the way to another place, either economically, either militarily,’ the protester replied.
The officer, yet again, asks him to explain the definition of imperialism, prompting the young man to scream in outrage: ‘I just f***ing did!’
The officer, sporting a smug smirk at this point, stated again how he did not explain the meaning of the term.
The young man erupted into another fit of rage, accusing the cop of not having read a book since high school, before retreating from the line of officers.
Demonstrators have taken to the streets since Friday, having the flags of Mexico and other countries in solidarity for the migrants rounded up in immigration raids.
Anti-ICE protesters march through downtown LA on Tuesday as armed police stand guard
Fireworks explode behind Ventura County Sheriff’s department deputies in riot gear during a protest in response to federal immigration operations in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles on Monday
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has arrested 2,000 immigration offenders per day recently, Homeland Security said on Monday.
The city’s mayor put a curfew in place for one square mile of downtown LA on Tuesday night due to violence and looting. It will run for several days.
But with five minutes until the curfew took effect on Tuesday, hundreds of protesters faced police with their hands raised, chanting ‘peaceful protest’.
Police said multiple groups stayed on the streets in some areas despite the curfew and ‘mass arrests are being initiated’.
Law enforcement earlier said that 197 people had already been arrested on Tuesday – more than double the total number of arrests to date.
It is unclear if the college aged students who heckled officers were among those who violated the curfew, or if they were arrested or met with other consequences.
President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to quell protests, which fueled looting, rioting and other violence.
State and local officials have called Trump’s response an extreme over-reaction to mostly peaceful demonstrations.
Police enforce a curfew after it went into effect during a protest against ICE raids on Tuesday
Protesters walk by one of several Waymo cars that were set on fire in downtown LA on Sunday as hundreds of people gathered to protest immigration sweeps
LA Mayor Karen Bass emphasized at a press conference the distinction between the majority of demonstrators protesting peacefully and a smaller number of agitators she blamed for violence and looting.
‘When these peaceful rallies end, and the protesters head home, another element moves in: opportunists, who come in under the cover of a peaceful protest to ravage and destroy,’ Council member Ysabel Jurado, who represents the area, added.
As the mayor and the council member spoke, police and protesters were engaged in skirmishes outside.
In what has become a daily ritual, police forced demonstrators away from the streets outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, where many detained migrants are held.
Multiple groups of protesters snaked through downtown LA, monitored or followed by police armed with less lethal munitions.
Protests also took place in other cities including New York, Atlanta and Chicago, where demonstrators shouted at and scuffled with officers.
About 700 Marines were in a staging area in the Seal Beach area about 30 miles south of LA, awaiting deployment to specific locations.
There were 2,100 National Guard troops in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday, more than half the 4,000 to be activated.
The Marines and National Guard troops lack the authority to makes arrests and will be charged only with protecting federal property and personnel.
Police officers in riot gear respond to a protest in response to federal immigration operations in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles on Monday
Even so, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state was concerned about allowing federal troops to protect personnel, saying there was a risk that could violate an 1878 law that generally forbids the US military, including the National Guard, from taking part in civilian law enforcement.
‘Protecting personnel likely means accompanying ICE agents into communities and neighborhoods, and protecting functions could mean protecting the ICE function of enforcing the immigration law,’ Bonta said.
ICE on Tuesday posted photos on X of National Guard troops accompanying ICE officers on an immigration raid.
Trump administration officials have vowed to redouble the immigration raids in response to the street protests.
