JUST IN: LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell says rioters are now using weapons that can kill his officers, says he respects ICE.
“The violence is escalating… It’s getting increasingly worse and more violent.”
“We had individuals shooting commercial-grade fireworks at our officers. That can kill you.”
**LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell**: To the people who are not happy with the fact that ICE is in the community doing what ICE does, you know, I respect ICE for being a fellow law enforcement agency. They have their mission; they have their work to do. We don’t engage in that activity, but again, we can’t preclude them from doing that. They have every right to do that. I ask people in the community to trust the LAPD, that we’re not there for that purpose, and that if they have something they need us to be able to address, we’re there for them. As far as the big picture of what can I recommend they do or not do, that’s something—it’s a federal issue, and the federal authorities have the right to be able to do what they’re doing.
**LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell (regarding the violence)**: This violence that I’ve seen is disgusting. It’s escalated now since the beginning of this incident. What we saw the first night was bad; what we’ve seen subsequent to that is getting increasingly worse and more violent. Tonight, we had individuals out there shooting commercial-grade fireworks at our officers. That can kill you. We have adapted our tactics to be able to have a chance to take these people into custody and to be able to hold them accountable. We are overwhelmed as far as the number of people out there engaged in this type of activity and the type of things that they’re doing. They’ll take backpacks, and the backpack will have a cinder block in it; they have a hammer, and they’ll break up the cinder block and use that, pass it around to throw at officers, to throw at cars, and to throw at other people. We’ve seen people with hammers and you’ve broadcast it—breaking the bollards behind the federal building and taking the rocks, if you will, pieces of concrete, and throwing them at officers. We’ve had liquid, who knows what, thrown at officers. There’s no limit to what they’re doing to our officers.
