Protest Questions & Answers

Protest Questions and Answers

by Susan Basko, esq.

The following are some of the many search terms that people have used this week to get to this site.  I will take these as questions and try to answer.  I am taking them exactly as written, typos and all.

1. peaceful protests where people got arrested -
Answer: Protesting is legal.  It is our Constitutional right.  Very few protesters are arrested, overall.  If a protest is peaceful, arrests are not likely.  However, even at a peaceful protest, there can be people doing things that get them arrested.  In addition, if a protest runs for too many hours, often police begin causing trouble, randomly attacking and arresting people.  If you want to run a peaceful protest, keep it to 2 hours maximum.  If you want to keep yourself safe at a longer protest, leave after a reasonable amount of time before people and police get cranky and start doing things they should not.


2. fbi infiltrate seattle protestors  
Answer: I don't know anything about this, but it would not surprise me.  You might want to google this and see what information is out there.


3. "facebook" and "doxbin" 
Answer: Facebook is a major social media. Doxbin is a type of site usually used by hackers, stalkers, or people engaged in violent crimes.  Some of the people that are involved in Doxbin crime sites have Twitter and/or Facebook accounts. 


4. california unlawful assembly required announcement  
Answer: In California and most other places, if the police decide that a protest is an unlawful assembly, they are supposed to make an announcement over loudspeaker or shouted if there is no loudspeaker.  They are supposed to repeat the announcement as many times as it takes and from different locations so that everyone has a chance to hear it.  The police might not do all this, though.  In the announcement, the police officer will state that the protest or gathering has been declared an unlawful assembly and that people must leave or they will be subject to arrest and to weaponry.  The announcement is supposed to tell which direction people are supposed to walk to leave.  Many (most?) people at a protest do not know which direction they are facing, and often to do not know the name of nearby streets.  So when police announce that people are to "walk West on Smith Street," most people won't know where that is.  The order to leave an unlawful assembly is called an Order to Disperse.  That means to leave and go home.  When an order to disperse has been given, police are supposed to allow protesters to leave and not try to kettle them or capture them.  If you do not obey an order to disperse, or if you are caught in a crowd that cannot quickly leave, you may experience tear gas, pepper spray, LRAD (a sonic weapon), rubber bullets, flash bangs, etc, as well as face being arrested or kettled.

5. giving dispersal orders during a unlawful assembly  
Answer: See the answer to #4 above.  It is the same in many states.  If an unlawful assembly has been declared, the police are supposed to announce that and give an order to disperse, followed by telling people where they need to walk to leave the area.


6. what happens if you're arrested at a protest   
Answer: Usually they put zip ties on your hands, usually too tightly, and they make you stand around or sit around waiting to be transported somewhere.  Then, usually they put you onto a hot bus and make you sit on it for hours.  Then, they usually take you someplace to be processed, maybe a jail, maybe some impromptu place.  Then, they hold you for hours or up to a few days and let you go, either based on your identification or based on bail money.  Usually while you are being held, you will not have water, food, or a chance to go to the bathroom.


7. anaheim protest live  
Answer: I don't know anything about this.  There are protests all over the place, including Anaheim.


8. are peaceful protesters getting arrested 
Answer: Yes, that happens sometimes. Most peaceful protesters do not get arrested, but some do.


9. arrested protester being denied insulin   
Answer:  If you are arrested at a protest, you will almost surely not be given any medicines, even if you need them.  If you need medicine, let the police know right away and maybe they will let you go home instead of arresting you.  Giving you any medicine while in custody will require either that you have it with you and then being allowed to take it, or the police would have to bring you to a hospital for a prescription, and they are extremely unlikely to do that. If you are in medical need, it is probably best to avoid going to any protest that might get out of hand. 

10. can you sue if you are hurt protesting  
Answer: Sometimes protesters who have been injured by police by excessive use of force have sued the police and on rare occasions, they have won.  If a protester is hurt by the negligent or criminal acts of another, such as being run over intentionally by a car, they might sue the person that did it.  Anyone in such a situation should speak with a Civil Rights lawyer or possibly a personal injury lawyer.  They will evaluate your specific case for its facts and apply those to the law and then tell you if they think you have a case or not.   Try to keep out of the way of trouble at a protest.  In the George Floyd protests, it has been reported that police have shot many people with rubber bullets.  Rubber bullets are extremely dangerous and should never be used to disperse a crowd. During these protests, it has been reported that numerous people have lost an eye after police shot them in the eye with a rubber bullet.  Rubber bullets should be banned from use in protests.


11.  cost of getting out of jail after protest  
Answer: This can range from simply showing your identification all the way to thousands of dollars.  It depends on what basis you were arrested or what you have been charged with.   It also depends what "game" the police are playing at the moment.  Maybe they're going to hold you on a hot bus for a few hours and let you go.  Maybe they are going to take you to jail and make you go before a judge to set bail.  It all depends.  If people have to pay bail, it will be based sometimes on the set bail amount for that charge.  It also depends on the state and even on the county.  For example, failure to disperse can bring different bail amounts in different counties in the same state.  Usually overall, most protest arrests will be no bail or a few hundred dollars, though some can be significantly higher.


12.  la city rules for protests and marches   - 
Answer: Use the search bar on this site on the right hand side bar near the top.

Spying on George Floyd Protesters

Spying on George Floyd Protesters

The following letter is a scoop that was obtained by Jason Leopold and Buzzfeed News.  See Buzzfeed News for more context.  The letter is from five members of the U.S. Senate asking for informatoin from the Department of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of Interior, and Department of Homeland Security requesting information on what each is doing with regard to George Floyd protesters.

UCLA Used by LAPD to Detain Those Arrested at Protest

Royce Hall, UCLA, photo by Alton, 
creative commons license 

UCLA Used by LAPD to Detain Those Arrested at Protest

by Susan Basko, esq

According to the letter below, which states it is from UCLA faculty members, the UCLA campus was used the Los Angeles Police Department to detain people who had been arrested at protests in downtown Los Angeles.

Letter from faculty:

June 2, 2020

Dear Chancellor Block and Executive Vice-Chancellor Carter,

It has come to our attention that last evening, June 1, 2020, a UCLA facility, the Jackie Robinson Stadium, was used by LAPD to detain protesters and process arrests, including arrests of UCLA students. We have heard from the National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles, arrested UCLA students, and other arrested protesters on this matter.

Testimony from arrested protesters is chilling. Arrested for violation of curfew in downtown Los Angeles, protesters were crowded into LA County Sheriff’s Department buses and brought to UCLA. As they arrived, they looked out of the small windows on these prison buses only to see Bruins logos and signs greeting them at the Jackie Robinson Stadium. Protesters were held on these buses at UCLA for five to six hours, without access to restrooms, food, water, information, or medical attention. Indeed, there was a medical emergency on one of the buses, one that received a response from the fire department several hours later. 

All protocols of social distancing were violated by the LA County Sheriff’s Department and LAPD with protesters deliberately crowded into buses and officers not following rules and recommendations established by the City, the County, and the CDC, including wearing masks. The cruel irony that this took place at a location used as a COVID-19 testing site is not lost on those arrested or on us. 

When protesters were taken off the buses, they were subject to processing in the parking lot of the stadium and then released, which meant that they were directed to find their way home late at night (between 1:30 am and 3:30 am) from the Jackie Robinson Stadium. Without working cell phones and under conditions of curfew, this was a near impossible task, especially for those unhoused Angelenos who had also been arrested for curfew violation for simply being on the streets of downtown Los Angeles and were now marooned at UCLA.

 In addition, protesters, including UCLA students, were arrested in Westwood, again for violation of curfew. They were brought to Jackie Robinson Stadium on LAPD buses after LAPD tried to commandeer a 720 Metro Bus but failed to maneuver it through the streets. We share these details because if you do not already know them, you must know them now.

We write to express our deep concern about these events and the matter of UCLA collaboration with LAPD and other police forces. In recent days, UCLA leadership has shared statements of solidarity denouncing institutionalized racism and recognizing the importance of protest against such racism.

Last night’s use of Jackie Robinson Stadium stands in sharp hypocrisy to these statements. We have heard from our students and we agree that such solidarity statements must be accompanied not by collaboration with the police but by concrete steps that move us towards the divestment of UCLA from LAPD and other forms of policing, similar to the prompt action taken by the President of the University of Minnesota following the murder of Mr. George Floyd. In the coming months, we intend to work towards this goal in partnership with student and community organizations. We look forward to being in dialogue and alliance with you on this.

That said, we also seek a full accounting of the events of last evening. The Jackie Robinson Stadium is a UCLA facility, implicating all of us in the use of that space to detain protestors and process arrests. It is our understanding that UCLA holds the lease to the Jackie Robinson Stadium and its parking lots, which sit on VA grounds. We ask for a detailed, public statement on the chain of events, decisions, and command lines that led to the use of this facility by LAPD and its mobile processing units last evening and a copy of any agreements that may govern LAPD’s use of this UCLA facility. We also ask for an immediate cessation of the use of this facility or any other UCLA facility by LAPD and other police forces.

Last evening, UCLA students were arrested for engaging in the constitutionally protected right to peacefully protest against racial injustice, which is pervasive in American policing. They were detained and processed at a stadium on their own campus named after Jackie Robinson, an icon of the long and unfinished struggle for Black freedom. Today many of them are trying to complete final examinations and final assignments. This is not the UCLA education and experience that they deserve.

But this is not just about our students. As UCLA faculty, we refuse to allow our university to serve as a police outpost at this moment of national uprising and at any other time. As a public university, we serve the public and our students, and this in turn requires dismantling the mechanisms of punishment that have historically caused undeniable harm to communities in Los Angeles.

A few days ago, we were glad to read your statement which noted: "Still, we recognize that UCLA also can and must do better. As campus leaders, we recommit ourselves to ensuring that our policies and actions value the lives, safety and dignity of every Bruin." This is our chance to do better.

We look forward to receiving a full and detailed accounting of last evening’s incident and to working with you and the rest of the UCLA leadership on divestment from collaborations with LAPD and other police forces.

[signed by dozens of UCLA faculty and administrators]

Protesting - What is Legal and What is Not?

Protesting - What is Legal and What is Not?

by Susan Basko, esq.

May 31, 2020. Many US cities experienced riots last night.  There seems to be a lot of confusion on what is legal and what is not.

PROTESTING IS LEGAL!  Protesting on the streets involves these things:

Walking

Marching 

Chanting

Carrying Signs

Being present

WHAT IS NOT LEGAL:

Breaking glass

Looting (stealing from a store or house or business)

Damaging property

Spray painting on things you don't own

Starting fires

Hurting any person by pushing, hitting, kicking

Blockading people or vehicles so they cannot keep moving

Throwing fireworks at anyone

Shooting a gun around people

Anything else that damages or endangers people or property

Protest or Riot? Sliding Scale

"Protests Turn Destructive": Woman carries whole cheesecake from
looted Cheesecake Factory during protest.


Protest or Riot? Sliding Scale

Protest - Peaceful Assembly

Unlawful Assembly - (as determined by police on the scene)

Riot - when things really get cooking

Uprising - sustained over time

Revolt - with a definite purpose, songs written for it

Revolution - everyone gets new hats!

Where on this scale does a woman taking a whole cheesecake from a looted Cheesecake Factory restaurant fit?  That's probably Uprising.  It looks like she also took a little container of milk, so it might be a Revolt.  If she writes a protest song about it, it is for sure a Revolution.  If she took a whole Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake, she is the Leader of the Revolution.