Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: Hi, good afternoon, Chris Merrill.
Speaker 3: I AM six forty more stimulating talk today is just
Speaker 3: about covering the protests. So we did kind of a
Speaker 3: breaking news show earlier. Came out of the air at
Speaker 3: noon as protesters are sort of showing up at that
Speaker 3: federal building at Alameda and one on one kind of
Speaker 3: by Union station. And at the time, Michael Monks was
Speaker 3: there and he said about one hundred people.
Speaker 2: And now we've got i'd say, there's a couple.
Speaker 3: Of thousand there there right now, about I'd say, as
Speaker 3: we got closer and closer, like by one o'clock, there
Speaker 3: were probably a few hundred people there. And then at
Speaker 3: one o'clock, all of a sudden, it was like all
Speaker 3: hell broke loose, and Michael Monks was in the middle
Speaker 3: of what felt like a war zone, and I hear
Speaker 3: this pop go off, this loud bang, and I didn't
Speaker 3: know what it was. I don't know if there was
Speaker 3: a flash bang that went off. I didn't know if
Speaker 3: there was a canister that went off, but it sounded
Speaker 3: like it sounded like a shot of some sort. But I,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm on the other end. Listen you you
Speaker 3: could have heard it as well as I could. I'm
Speaker 3: just sitting in a studio listening to the guy report,
Speaker 3: so I don't I can't see anything. And then he
Speaker 3: all of a sudden stopped and I said, Michael, y okay.
Speaker 3: I mean there was this pause, and I was just dumbfounded.
Speaker 3: And one of the things about Michael Monks is that
Speaker 3: he's so incredibly talented that I found myself just listening
Speaker 3: to him telling the story, painting the scene.
Speaker 2: He did such a tremendous job.
Speaker 3: And you know, my job is to sit here and
Speaker 3: try to think of what the next question is to ask,
Speaker 3: and all I could think of was I'm just listening
Speaker 3: to him tell the story.
Speaker 2: He was so good.
Speaker 3: So when this bang goes off, I just said, Michael,
Speaker 3: you okay. I don't even know what I was just
Speaker 3: thinking I was just going to play out. And then
Speaker 3: I realized, oh, dummy, I'm the one that has to
Speaker 3: actually find out not I have to determine how it's
Speaker 3: going to play out. So fortunately he was okay, and
Speaker 3: then things sort of tamed down a little bit, and
Speaker 3: we found out that the National Guard was pushing protesters away,
Speaker 3: so that they could bring this, uh, this caravan of
Speaker 3: vehicles in and as they as they start coming in,
Speaker 3: we hear all this other noise and you can hear
Speaker 3: sirens and and and Michael is sort of talking about it,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden he went from yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: well you know we had this, we had this, we
Speaker 3: had this incident. And then it sort of calmed down,
Speaker 3: and he went, wait a minute, it's popping off again.
Speaker 3: And there were there was this sort of chaotic feeling
Speaker 3: and you could hear people screaming, and then you heard
Speaker 3: these engines revving. They were just raw, they were so loud,
Speaker 3: and and these sirens going off, and then Michael's going
Speaker 3: in that they're they're pushing people again.
Speaker 2: They're pushing people again, and there's a smoke in the air,
Speaker 2: and then there's just nothing. It's just silent, and we
Speaker 2: didn't know what happened.
Speaker 3: And and again here I am in the studio and
Speaker 3: I'm supposed to be going, well, we'll get back with Michael,
Speaker 3: who it seems that we've lost our connection, But I'm going, oh,
Speaker 3: my god, is he okay? Did did he just get shot?
Speaker 3: And this is really what's going through my mind. I
Speaker 3: have no idea, and I have a clue, right, I'm
Speaker 3: thinking that he catch you know. But then I thought, okay,
Speaker 3: well if he had, if something can happen to him physically,
Speaker 3: then his connection should still be I should hear the microphone, right,
Speaker 3: And I didn't hear that, So then I thought, okay, well,
Speaker 3: maybe it's just technically, maybe there was just disconnected cell phones.
Speaker 2: Got cut off or something. I didn't know, right.
Speaker 3: So fortunately, then I start getting a text message. I
Speaker 3: get text messages almost immediately afterwards. As you know, I'm
Speaker 3: sort of playing a little bit, going, uh, I don't
Speaker 3: know what's happening, and uh. And so I started getting
Speaker 3: these text messages from Michael and he's saying, get me
Speaker 3: back on the air, get me back on I'll call in.
Speaker 3: And so I'm there's this part of me that's super
Speaker 3: relieved because okay, good, he's you know, didn't get shot.
Speaker 3: And then he said I got tear gassed. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: And I gotta be totally honest. He texted me this,
Speaker 3: and in my mind, I'm thinking he's tear gassed. He
Speaker 3: can't go on the air. The guy's got he's got
Speaker 3: these you know, you can't see anything and he can't
Speaker 3: breathe and he can't talk. But then I realized he
Speaker 3: was texting, so he must have been able to see
Speaker 3: his cell phone screen. Genuinely, this is what's going through
Speaker 3: my mind. He must be able to see a cell
Speaker 3: phone screen, so he's probably got the wherewithal to be
Speaker 3: able to go back on the air. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: he called into the station. We did. We talked for
Speaker 3: a little while via a cell phone until he could
Speaker 3: get the whatever it was with his equipment hammered out.
Speaker 2: So that was at one o'clock.
Speaker 3: Today, and then it's almost as if things started going awry.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how the word got spread.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was people listening to us
Speaker 3: or other radio, if it was people watching what was
Speaker 3: going on on their televisions, or.
Speaker 2: If it was just a social media and so you had.
Speaker 3: People live streaming this chaos as it was developing, or
Speaker 3: if it was people that were calling their friends going
Speaker 3: it's popping off down here?
Speaker 2: Am I using that word right? Kayla? It's popping off?
Speaker 2: Am I saying that right? Okay? Thank you?
Speaker 3: I've got confirmation I am. I am sounding hip. It's
Speaker 3: popping off? So I don't know if they were calling
Speaker 3: and saying it's it's you know, something's going on down
Speaker 3: here what?
Speaker 2: But I was freaked out.
Speaker 3: And and then all of a sudden, the crowd just
Speaker 3: started ballooning in size, almost instantly.
Speaker 2: And they they already had this.
Speaker 3: They had this plan anyway to have a protest at
Speaker 3: City Hall at two o'clock, and I think that pretty
Speaker 3: well got scrapped because everybody said, the action is is
Speaker 3: here at at.
Speaker 2: The Federal building. So now, and I apologize.
Speaker 3: If I'm just rambling on here, but this was this
Speaker 3: was a wild morning, I guess early afternoon.
Speaker 2: So now they did start.
Speaker 3: The police did form a line, and I don't know
Speaker 3: it was not National Guard. I don't know if it
Speaker 3: was LAPD or not, but they started slowly pushing the
Speaker 3: crowd back and getting them away from that that federal building,
Speaker 3: the detention center right there. The thing is is they
Speaker 3: were pushing people back and people started smirt dispersed. It's
Speaker 3: like they circled around and now they're all over the
Speaker 3: bridge where the bridge is I guess I should say,
Speaker 3: over the one on one And so that is a
Speaker 3: bit of a bit of a mess.
Speaker 2: Are you there, Kayla? I don't hear you. I hear you. Okay,
Speaker 2: that wasn't That wasn't me.
Speaker 4: I don't know whose voice that was.
Speaker 2: You heard that? Uh yeah, I'm just I'm hearing you.
Speaker 2: Now hey, traffic.
Speaker 4: Traffic, okay, great, yes, traffic.
Speaker 2: Traffic, traffic.
Speaker 3: So I'm looking at the disaster that is the one
Speaker 3: on one right now, Lucy this, Uh, I am too
Speaker 3: what I'm thinking of now, I know it's closed, and
Speaker 3: I know that there's some people trying to exit off
Speaker 3: the one on one that maybe get the word stay
Speaker 3: away from downtown. Take the longest route around. It's still
Speaker 3: gonna be faster than trying to take the one on one.
Speaker 3: But I'm also thinking of all the cars that are
Speaker 3: stuck there as people became as they started to disperse,
Speaker 3: they made their way onto the one on one, or
Speaker 3: they're covered the bridges on Spring Street and Maine and
Speaker 3: Los Angeles and obviously Alameda. And then I'm saying that
Speaker 3: there are still some cars that are sort of stuck
Speaker 3: behind those protesters on one on one and they've been
Speaker 3: there for a long.
Speaker 4: Time, yes they have. And CHP is on the scene
Speaker 4: right there too, okay, helping out. I mean, the thing is.
Speaker 4: I would just say for anyone, just stay away from downtown.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you're not gonna, if you're not planning
Speaker 4: to be in the protest, just stay away. It's it's
Speaker 4: not really rocket science, is it.
Speaker 2: No, No, you're.
Speaker 4: Right, but but but there's a there's a bit of
Speaker 4: a thrill factor. There's people who want to come in
Speaker 4: and see what's going on. It's like, oh, let me
Speaker 4: see what's gone. You know, this is like live TV,
Speaker 4: which it is, so, but I would just say stay away.
Speaker 4: It's not worth it now.
Speaker 3: Even if you do want to go see what's going on,
Speaker 3: like you want to take in and be a part
Speaker 3: of it in some way, shape or form, you can't
Speaker 3: get close in your car.
Speaker 2: You can't know.
Speaker 3: So there's there's no reason for you to h to
Speaker 3: even get in the car and get down there, because
Speaker 3: it's too late. If you weren't there early to see
Speaker 3: this stuff, you're not going to be a part of it.
Speaker 3: You're just gonna be stuck in traffic. And I ain't
Speaker 3: got time on a Sunday to be stuck in traffic. True, right,
Speaker 3: that's true. Yeah, We're gonna check with Michael Monks, who
Speaker 3: has been covering this all day long.
Speaker 2: He uh, he was out early.
Speaker 3: He was out this morning doing some uh some reports
Speaker 3: from city hall. Then he made his way down to
Speaker 3: the Federal building at Alameda. We'll check with him and
Speaker 3: get the latest from him. I think he was on foot,
Speaker 3: so I don't think he got necessarily stuck in this
Speaker 3: traffic because it is just it's it's just a mess.
Speaker 3: Don't don't even go close to it. Don't even go
Speaker 3: close to it. It's yeah, right, he just walked to it,
Speaker 3: didn't he. Bro He just walked the whole thing, didn't he.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he lives really close, so he's in. He's in
Speaker 2: the thick of it.
Speaker 3: Well, I hope things calm down so he can get
Speaker 3: some even those have to listen to sirens and you know,
Speaker 3: pepper bowl shots all night.
Speaker 2: No bueno.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, check with him in just a second.
Speaker 3: It's Chris Merril KFI AM six forty. We are live
Speaker 3: everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3: Well, good afternoon, my friends, Chris Merril KFI AM six
Speaker 3: forty more stimulating talk and on demand anytime on the
Speaker 3: iHeart Radio App. All right, So the protest that we've
Speaker 3: been covering all day long here around the Federal Building Alameda,
Speaker 3: which is the detention center as well. Those who have
Speaker 3: largely been dispersed. The police have really set up an
Speaker 3: entire blockade line I guess around around Alameda all the
Speaker 3: way back to Temple Street. They have pretty well made
Speaker 3: it so that there are no protesters near that detention
Speaker 3: center any longer. The only people who are behind that
Speaker 3: line basically law enforcement and some media doing some live.
Speaker 2: Shots, some stand ups there.
Speaker 3: A guy who was there for most of today is
Speaker 3: Michael Monks, and Michael out of the chaos a little
Speaker 3: bit there, But it looks like most of the dispersion,
Speaker 3: many of the people have just made their way into
Speaker 3: stopping up one on one right now, and that's a mess.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what it looks like. Some of the folks
Speaker 5: who were at the protest and the march and the
Speaker 5: rally have made their way on the freeway. That's not
Speaker 5: atypical of protests in Los Angeles. It's also not a
Speaker 5: way to win friends, that's for darn sure. We have
Speaker 5: no trouble clogging up the freeways on our own, and
Speaker 5: it's frustrating so for people trying to get home or
Speaker 5: trying to go to work. This is going to be
Speaker 5: very frustrating. The one oh one is already disaster every day,
Speaker 5: and this is only going to make it worse. The
Speaker 5: one ten also having some problems, and then some of
Speaker 5: the surface streets downtown, but that seems to be the
Speaker 5: last of the disruption. Is this massive disruption of traffic
Speaker 5: flow through the area, because just a little while ago,
Speaker 5: there were thousands of people in the streets of Los
Speaker 5: Angeles as the protest outside the Federal Building was converged
Speaker 5: with this other rally that was taking place at LA
Speaker 5: City Hall. And it didn't last very long.
Speaker 2: It was a.
Speaker 5: Big, massive statement of just population, a big number of
Speaker 5: people who came down to LA City Hall, march down
Speaker 5: to the Federal Building where a protest was already happening,
Speaker 5: blocked long, thousands deep, and then a unlawful assembly was declared.
Speaker 5: Police threatened to arrest people, and a lot of people
Speaker 5: turn around and left.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw that they did make They did detain
Speaker 3: a few people who were you know, on the front
Speaker 3: lines and were standing up to the police that were
Speaker 3: trying to push their line back. And again it looks
Speaker 3: like most of the coverage anyway, you know, the TV helicopters,
Speaker 3: and I've got the monitor up here in the studio,
Speaker 3: and it looks like they're really focusing on the stoppage
Speaker 3: on the one oh one right now. That seems to
Speaker 3: be where most of those protesters have made their way,
Speaker 3: either onto the actual freeway itself or some of the overpasses,
Speaker 3: whether Alameda or Los Angeles Street or Maine, or even
Speaker 3: back to Spring Street. That seems to be where everything is.
Speaker 3: So what in my mind, Michael Monks, You've been covering this,
Speaker 3: this protest, but obviously many many more in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: than than than I ever will. So in my mind,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, all right, maybe this is all over. I mean,
Speaker 3: it was start, it was supposed to. The protest was
Speaker 3: scheduled to start it too. Yet some people that got
Speaker 3: there a little bit early, you know, there there's a
Speaker 3: bit of a skirmish around one that you were a
Speaker 3: part of. Of course, you had your KFI badge on
Speaker 3: which we learned earlier is actually a tear gas magnet,
Speaker 3: and so you were able to bring some of that
Speaker 3: tear gas in. Uh, and then like you said, the
Speaker 3: crowd it ballooned in size, but we didn't have the
Speaker 3: kind of skirmishes like we did earlier on you know,
Speaker 3: just three hours ago.
Speaker 5: Is this This wasn't anything like the Black Lives Matters
Speaker 5: protests from five years ago that we saw all over
Speaker 5: the country, and I wasn't even in LA for those,
Speaker 5: but they were happening everywhere and those turned pretty violent
Speaker 5: and there were riots involved in those cases. Here, there
Speaker 5: were multiple events taking place kind of at the same time.
Speaker 5: They were overlapping and then they all converge. By the
Speaker 5: time I got to the Federal Building at around eleven thirty,
Speaker 5: there was word from LAPD they were monitoring that protest.
Speaker 5: There was also one on Olbera Street at all Plblau,
Speaker 5: and there was also a protest outside of one of
Speaker 5: the LAPD division offices here in downtown Los Angeles, but
Speaker 5: the one at the Federal Building was the one that
Speaker 5: was the most intense. This has been the site of
Speaker 5: protests since Friday, and it's because, you know, some of
Speaker 5: the people taken into custody by ice are apparently seemed
Speaker 5: pained in the car Soro facility there. And what was
Speaker 5: different about today was it wasn't just federal police or
Speaker 5: local police. The California National Guard was there, as ordered
Speaker 5: by President Trump, and so that changed the dynamics of it.
Speaker 5: When you and I started talking around twelve, there were
Speaker 5: probably one hundred people into two hundred people by one
Speaker 5: o'clock when that incident happened. The National Guard pushed people
Speaker 5: into the streets quite violently and quite physically and using
Speaker 5: tear gas and flash bangs and all that to make
Speaker 5: way for some federal vehicles to go into the garage.
Speaker 5: There After that, the crowd ballooned to about six or
Speaker 5: seven hundred people by my account, and then around two
Speaker 5: ten somebody got on a bullhorn and said, let's go
Speaker 5: to City Hall. And that's about the time that rally
Speaker 5: at City Hall was scheduled. But then the LAPD showed up.
Speaker 5: They blocked off Temple Street so people could not go
Speaker 5: from the Federal Building to City Hall. But what was
Speaker 5: happening was the rally at City Hall morphed into a march,
Speaker 5: and so all the people who had gathered there poured
Speaker 5: into the streets of downtown La, marched down Temple Street,
Speaker 5: took a left onto Alameda, and made their way right
Speaker 5: back to the Federal Building. And there was probably, you know,
Speaker 5: a little bit of drawing there. Some I know a
Speaker 5: couple of LAPD officers were injured by motorcyclists apparently, but
Speaker 5: that ended very quickly, and now the remnants of this
Speaker 5: is what's happening on the freeways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so then it makes me wonder, since we saw
Speaker 3: kind of that peak earlier in the afternoon, we're in
Speaker 3: a bit of a valley now as far as the
Speaker 3: enthusiasm or the excitement around the action goes, is there
Speaker 3: any concern that this is going to ramp back up?
Speaker 2: Is that sun starts to get lower in the sky.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. The LAPD has declared a tactical alert and so
Speaker 5: what that means is all officers are to remain on duty.
Speaker 5: Everybody should be at the ready to go out into
Speaker 5: the field if they are so called. That has been
Speaker 5: the case the past couple of days as well. So
Speaker 5: the LAPD is mobilized to respond to anything that takes place.
Speaker 5: But it was interesting as far as the LAPD goes,
Speaker 5: because I didn't see LAPD on the street on Alameda
Speaker 5: Street at all today until that march started and they
Speaker 5: shut down the road in its entirety for the most part,
Speaker 5: even while the protests were pouring into the street. Graphic
Speaker 5: was still trying to make its way through there, and
Speaker 5: so it lent itself to that conversation about what is
Speaker 5: happening with the way law enforcement is supposed to deal
Speaker 5: with this situation. Because we saw the National Guard, they're
Speaker 5: ready to go. We saw the federal police, they're ready
Speaker 5: to go. But what role can LAPD play Even if
Speaker 5: they're not going to put themselves in a position to
Speaker 5: help execute any type of civil immigration enforcement, what are
Speaker 5: they supposed to do when the protests against those actions
Speaker 5: pour into city streets. It was all very strange to watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's gonna be some questions that I think the
Speaker 3: talking heads at city Hall are going to have to answer.
Speaker 3: In fact, Mayor Bass is supposed to speak. Is what
Speaker 3: I'm saying is that she's supposed to discuss this very soon.
Speaker 3: So we'll see what she has to say about that. Hey, Michael,
Speaker 3: great job. You know, here's the wall and we'll check
Speaker 3: in with you again later on on the show if
Speaker 3: need be my friend. Otherwise, you know, grab some food,
Speaker 3: maybe a a nice meatball with some Sunday gravy.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it, you know, you and I we passed
Speaker 5: like ships in the night. It's the first time I've
Speaker 5: gotten to be on the show with you. I've got
Speaker 5: to do that. I just want to talk about Michigan.
Speaker 5: I thought we get to talk about Michigan a little bit.
Speaker 5: You're a Michigan guy and I love Michigan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we can talk.
Speaker 3: We can talk Michigan, we can talk Michigan football. Whatever
Speaker 3: you want to do, We'll talk all yeah. Happy to
Speaker 3: do all right, all right, sounds like a date. I
Speaker 3: love it, all right, Thanks buddy, Michael Monks. Can't fire
Speaker 3: reporter who was at all the casts as it was
Speaker 3: unfolding earlier today, No doubt about this politically charged. You
Speaker 3: heard Michael talking about President Trump, is he called for
Speaker 3: the National Guard. The governor, the mayor did not ask
Speaker 3: for the national Guard. They're claiming that this is inflammatory,
Speaker 3: that this this escalated things beyond where they needed to be.
Speaker 2: Could have been a whole lot worse.
Speaker 3: You know, listening to Michael speak when we had flash
Speaker 3: bangs and we had well, I guess flash bangs yesterday,
Speaker 3: pepper balls yesterday, tear gas today, could have been a
Speaker 3: whole lot worse. I am seeing some flashes of smoke
Speaker 3: going off into the air. Right now as I'm watching
Speaker 3: some of the again I'm a monitor in the studio.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's I don't know if that's
Speaker 3: from the police. It looks more like maybe it's fireworks. Okay,
Speaker 3: you're seeing fireworks too well for sure?
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 3: And then a drone I see, I see drones that
Speaker 3: are flying overhead. I don't think that's doing a whole
Speaker 3: lot of good. And I don't know if that's TV
Speaker 3: that's trying to get some grown drone footage, or if
Speaker 3: that's a YouTuber trying to get really great drone footage.
Speaker 3: But I'm sure that probably causes some unease on the
Speaker 3: part of the law enforcement.
Speaker 2: I know what would if I were there. Both sides
Speaker 2: are now closed as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see law enforcement is using the Is it
Speaker 3: the northbound side that the law enforcement is on, and
Speaker 3: that's it looks like they're trying to sort of stage
Speaker 3: in an effort to get people off of the southbound side.
Speaker 3: They don't seem to be in too much of a hurry.
Speaker 3: I think they're kind of letting the protesters tucker themselves
Speaker 3: out to some degree, trying not to escalate things any further. Well,
Speaker 3: we'll give an update on this. We'll watch, we'll watch
Speaker 3: what's going on. We'll get some of your talkbacks as well.
Speaker 3: If you're on the iHeart Radio app, feel ready to
Speaker 3: give us a talk back. Just hit that little talk
Speaker 3: back button and let us know what's going on in
Speaker 3: your mind. Happy to hear what your thoughts on what's
Speaker 3: happening today as well, and we'll continue with our coverage
Speaker 3: of the protests in downtown. It's Chris Meryl CAFI AM
Speaker 3: six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: All right, good after you.
Speaker 3: Chris Merril KFI AM six forty more stimulating talk and
Speaker 3: on demand anytime on the iHeart Radio App. Continuing to
Speaker 3: monitor the situation going on downtown. Looks like, well, I
Speaker 3: see a motorcycle that's not a ground there as I'm
Speaker 3: watching the monitor in my studio. So the protests earlier today,
Speaker 3: if we're joining us the protests earlier today at the
Speaker 3: Federal Building Alameda and one on one basically just down
Speaker 3: from Union Station, those got a little bit hectic a
Speaker 3: little after one o'clock. You may have just heard the
Speaker 3: promo that we were running with the Michael Monks I
Speaker 3: was on the air with at the time, and I
Speaker 3: heard that pop sound, and I gotta tell you what
Speaker 3: my headphones on. It sounded like there was a sounded
Speaker 3: like there was a gunshot, and I clinched a little.
Speaker 3: If I'm being honest, I was, And then I got
Speaker 3: nervous for the guy. And then he heard him start
Speaker 3: coughing because he caught a little tear gas. As the
Speaker 3: day went on, watching What's happening right now, though, as
Speaker 3: things sort of dispersed, the crowds grew a couple thousand people.
Speaker 3: I'd say, the crowd continues to grow. Now we've got well,
Speaker 3: what is this? What are you Goober's doing? Okay, so
Speaker 3: now I'm watching. Okay, the police now are trying to
Speaker 3: get people off the freeway. So as the crowds dispersed,
Speaker 3: they made their way to the freeway. Now the police
Speaker 3: are firing looks like smoke bombs toward the crowd, and
Speaker 3: then members of the crowd keep kicking the smoke bombs
Speaker 3: back to the police or law enforcement I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know which agency they're with, and then they
Speaker 3: continue to kick them back into the crowd, and it
Speaker 3: kind of looks like they're they're playing soccer.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how else to just describe it.
Speaker 3: The law enforcement throws the smoke bomb, the people kick
Speaker 3: the smoke bomb back. Somebody kicks it back to the people,
Speaker 3: the people kick it back. At one point it looked
Speaker 3: like somebody was trying to run up and take a
Speaker 3: penalty kick. I mean, it's honestly, it's a bit absurd,
Speaker 3: but the police are trying now to push people off
Speaker 3: the freeway. I do see officers with what appear to
Speaker 3: be pepper guns, and I'm having trouble. I'm looking at
Speaker 3: a split screen the monitor that I have in my studio,
Speaker 3: and so it's tough for me to delineate which screen
Speaker 3: is northbound on which one is southbound. Raoul, I'm not
Speaker 3: sure what you're looking at. It looks like the police
Speaker 3: have moved into that southbound lane where people were taking
Speaker 3: up all of the road. They were really stopping all
Speaker 3: the traffic, physically stopping the traffic that were on the
Speaker 3: road northbound. Not so many protesters were on the actual freeway,
Speaker 3: but authorities shut that down anyway just to keep everybody safe.
Speaker 3: But for the most part, the protesters stayed on the
Speaker 3: southbound side of the one on one at oh between
Speaker 3: Los Angeles Street, Spring Street and Lameda. You heard Lucy
Speaker 3: with the traffic update there in the last segment. It
Speaker 3: does appear that they're using smoke grenades right now. I
Speaker 3: don't know, maybe those maybe that's tear gas. I can't
Speaker 3: smell it, you know, I'm not there, But again, that's
Speaker 3: what the people and the officers were kicking back and forth,
Speaker 3: almost like they were, you know, doing soccer practice.
Speaker 2: Really bizarre situation.
Speaker 3: The other thing that I think is, I don't want
Speaker 3: to say it's complicating this, but it is certainly indicative
Speaker 3: of the age that we're in. The people on the
Speaker 3: front of the protest lines are all carrying cameras, some
Speaker 3: of them very high end, some of them not as
Speaker 3: high end, But in every case they're trying to document this.
Speaker 3: Some I believe are probably professional photographers, some are probably
Speaker 3: professional journalists, and some I think are probably YouTubers. They're
Speaker 3: on the note. Yeah, bring Lucy up if you would.
Speaker 3: Is it the protesters on the northbound side or are
Speaker 3: they just a police.
Speaker 4: In the northbounds, a police on the northbound side. It
Speaker 4: looks like it now I'm looking at this camera shop,
Speaker 4: the same one as you.
Speaker 3: Probably, I don't have any idea that that it's a
Speaker 3: helicopter that's spinning around, so I don't even know which
Speaker 3: waves up right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I do.
Speaker 3: Say that some protesters are engaging with the officers and
Speaker 3: then they are tasting pavement and getting cuffs on their
Speaker 3: on their hands real quick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that looks like the northbound side to me, that's
Speaker 4: the other way round.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, okay, good, whatever your vibe is, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Go with your vibe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going with that vibe right now.
Speaker 2: That's good. That's very good.
Speaker 3: Well, it does look like they're actually getting the protesters
Speaker 3: off the freeway though, and it and that moved pretty quickly,
Speaker 3: to be honest, because when we went to the commercial
Speaker 3: break before we checked with you the last time here,
Speaker 3: the protesters were still there. I even said it looked
Speaker 3: like the officers were slowly making their way there and
Speaker 3: formulating a game plan. But for the most part, they
Speaker 3: were allowing the protesters to tire themselves out. Now it
Speaker 3: looks like they've actually sort of boxed the protesters onto
Speaker 3: the I guess it's an on ramp and trying to
Speaker 3: walk them back up the on ramp right now.
Speaker 4: It's pretty clever actually peacefully, well, relatively yeah.
Speaker 2: Relatively peacefully.
Speaker 3: I think the only people that are I think it's
Speaker 3: really the pro You've got a few protesters that are
Speaker 3: acting out, agitators, as you've heard Michael Munks call them
Speaker 3: throughout the show, agitators who are acting out. For the
Speaker 3: most part, though, Yeah, the police are just forming forming
Speaker 3: a line and then slowly and closing that line, moving
Speaker 3: it forward, and the people are slowly moving back. I
Speaker 3: think there's a lot of people as I see kind
Speaker 3: of lining the wall behind them that sort of looks
Speaker 3: over the the on ramp. I think just a lot
Speaker 3: of you know, my grandpa would have called them looky lose, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think they're largely there to see the spectacle. The
Speaker 3: number of actually engaged protesters, I would say couple hundred
Speaker 3: tops that are actually on the freeway or on that
Speaker 3: that that on ramp.
Speaker 4: Yeah, serious protests is probably not that many.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again many of those are carrying cameras and
Speaker 3: they're they've decided they're going to get their YouTube clicks
Speaker 3: out of it.
Speaker 4: Exactly, yeah, exactly, right, But there's something going on right
Speaker 4: there on the ground. I don't know whether you're looking
Speaker 4: at the same camera shop, but there's some incident going
Speaker 4: on right now.
Speaker 3: I see somebody just got tag and put down in
Speaker 3: the in the smoke, So if that is tear gas,
Speaker 3: and again I can't see, but if that is tear gas,
Speaker 3: then somebody who goes after the officers and then ends
Speaker 3: up face down next to the tear gas canister is
Speaker 3: going to have a bad day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's not a great way to spend your
Speaker 2: Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 4: They all, Yeah, that.
Speaker 3: Looks like a highway patrol vehicle, so maybe a lot
Speaker 3: of these officers. Again, I've had trouble distinguishing what the
Speaker 3: agency is, but I just saw a high A.
Speaker 4: Lot of agencies down there, aren't they?
Speaker 3: And what have you seen, Lucy, Yeah, I mean we've
Speaker 3: seen National Guard was at the Federal building.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen any National Guard on.
Speaker 4: The No, not in the freeway. I haven't seen them either. No,
Speaker 4: but it's amazing the confluence of all the agencies that
Speaker 4: are down there. I heard a report on CNN earlier
Speaker 4: to that effect, and it's somewhat confused because of it,
Speaker 4: it would appear to be. But right now they seem
Speaker 4: to be clearing everything.
Speaker 3: Well as long as lawenforcements not confused. It seems like
Speaker 3: they seem to be coordinating actually pretty cleverly.
Speaker 4: Now. Definitely, Yeah, they're taking someone away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody's gonna have a bad day.
Speaker 3: All right, Lisia, We're gonna take our traffic with you
Speaker 3: here in just a minute. We are trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what the what the response is going to be
Speaker 3: from our elected city officials, and some of you not
Speaker 3: very happy with our elected city officials. Here you will
Speaker 3: hear from our talk back here in just a few moments,
Speaker 3: and the mayor is expected to speak at some point
Speaker 3: as soon as she does, and want to be able
Speaker 3: to take that live, so we will bring that to
Speaker 3: you as soon as Mayor Bass has something to say.
Speaker 2: Otherwise, it's a city under siege.
Speaker 3: I guess Mayor Basses is under from the Trump administration,
Speaker 3: and the administration says it's under siege from people who
Speaker 3: support illegal immigration. Hey, the only thing they take can
Speaker 3: agree on is that there's some sort of a siege.
Speaker 3: I just can't decide which team they're on. More on
Speaker 3: this are continuing coverage of the protest downtown. I'm Chris
Speaker 3: Merril KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere in the
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: All right, good.
Speaker 3: Afternoon, Chris Merril KFI AM six forty. More stimulating talk. Oh,
Speaker 3: watching the watching the gathering of protesters downtown, and I
Speaker 3: have watched this all day long. We did a special
Speaker 3: coverage on this starting at noon and over about one
Speaker 3: hundred protesters and then it really got big, about five
Speaker 3: hundred people by one o'clock. And then a little after
Speaker 3: to the protests from city Hall, combined with the protests
Speaker 3: that kept growing around the Federal building at on Alameda.
Speaker 3: And now you've got a couple of thousand, which I
Speaker 3: think is down a couple thousand from earlier. I'm terrible
Speaker 3: at crowd estimations, but it looks to me like the
Speaker 3: remainders are. You've got some agitators and they're still conflicting
Speaker 3: with law enforcement.
Speaker 2: That's there.
Speaker 3: Law enforcement continues to push people back up the on
Speaker 3: ramp and off of the the one to one freeway,
Speaker 3: which was shut down earlier.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement is.
Speaker 3: Slowly backing them all back onto the surface streets and
Speaker 3: the freeway doesn't look like it has any protesters left
Speaker 3: there at all. Law enforcement continues to detain a few people,
Speaker 3: take some people into custody. I'm gonna say that by
Speaker 3: the end of the night, we're gonna have a couple dozen,
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe fifty people that will have been detained.
Speaker 3: And honestly, this is one of those situations where even
Speaker 3: if you wanted to go down and protest, you you
Speaker 3: really had to mean it. You had to want to
Speaker 3: get arrested to get arrested. The law enforcement was holding
Speaker 3: off and giving everybody every opportunity to not be arrested.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to waste their time with that. So
Speaker 3: it really is the people who almost demanded and left
Speaker 3: no choice that are getting arrested. That said, looking for
Speaker 3: your thoughts on the talkback as always, as we do
Speaker 3: every Sunday afternoon. If you're listening on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: you just hit that little talkback button and let us
Speaker 3: know what you think. Questions, comments, quips, quotes, criticism to
Speaker 3: compliments always welcome.
Speaker 6: You might not like National guards on lay streets, but
Speaker 6: this is the only way LA can be kept in peace.
Speaker 6: It's always been like that in LA. It's a crazy
Speaker 6: town and you need national Guards to overwhelm otherwise all
Speaker 6: your federal buildings would be burned by this morning without
Speaker 6: national Guards.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, just to be clear, national Guard didn't
Speaker 3: show up until this morning, So no, that's necessarily true
Speaker 3: that it would have all been burned.
Speaker 2: All right? Oh yeah, Chris, all right, riddling this. LA
Speaker 2: County does not have its own mayor. Okay, okay, screw.
Speaker 3: Bass, all right, screw Bass, all right, and LA County
Speaker 3: needs its own mayor, which I think would make it
Speaker 3: the first county in America to have their own mayor.
Speaker 2: All right, we are waiting.
Speaker 3: I think Bass is supposed to speak, but has yet
Speaker 3: to say much of anything.
Speaker 7: Talk back talk about National Guard came in crowds dispersing
Speaker 7: the undocumented immigrants aka illegal aliens. Knew they were gonna
Speaker 7: get their asses kicked, so they bailed out and all
Speaker 7: their buddies bailed out with them. Maybe it might come
Speaker 7: back tonight, But the National Guard definitely helps with the
Speaker 7: presence just by looking at a man, they are needed
Speaker 7: compared to the George Floyd riots in La.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna respectfully disagree. And the reason I say
Speaker 3: that is that National Guard had three hundred people.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing many, many, many, many many.
Speaker 3: More police officers or Sheriff's officers or highway patrolmen that
Speaker 3: are on the scene right now. In fact, I haven't
Speaker 3: seen any National Guards people on any of our are
Speaker 3: monitored shots in a very long time. Because remember, the
Speaker 3: National Guard is restricted to the federal area. That's a
Speaker 3: jurisdictional thing. So National Guard is covering the federal I
Speaker 3: guess property, So they're offering security around the federal buildings.
Speaker 3: Once we start talking about what's in the street, which
Speaker 3: is where everything's moved now. And as those two protests
Speaker 3: sort of combined, as they merged about quarter after two today,
Speaker 3: it was all on the streets and that it was
Speaker 3: all about LAPD.
Speaker 4: CHP.
Speaker 3: I don't know if the Sheriff's department is out there,
Speaker 3: but at that point it wasn't about the federal enforcement. Now,
Speaker 3: I understand you wanted to see the show of might
Speaker 3: around the federal buildings.
Speaker 2: That's fine, but I.
Speaker 3: As far as actually enforcing things, I don't know how
Speaker 3: much the National Guard actually did. Uh, But maybe that
Speaker 3: show of Mike was was enough of a deterrent to
Speaker 3: keep a number of people away from the federal building
Speaker 3: to begin with. I don't know we can argue about
Speaker 3: that until the cows come home. We'll never know because
Speaker 3: that would be you know, it didn't happen.
Speaker 8: All right, go on, We're going on three days of
Speaker 8: protests and chaos in downtown Los Angeles. Now, Mayor Bass,
Speaker 8: Karen Bass can't get this under control. She needs to
Speaker 8: get the hell out of office. In fact, she should
Speaker 8: have never got elected. She can't handle herself. Even wiping
Speaker 8: her own butt on the toilet.
Speaker 2: Uh, can we get confirmation on that?
Speaker 4: I don't know how we know that information.
Speaker 3: Well, Calen, that's up to you to find out as about.
Speaker 2: It, I want you to find out all right, Well,
Speaker 2: I guess I'll email the.
Speaker 3: Mayor see if you can get down to that press
Speaker 3: conference and just put a microphone in there and say,
Speaker 3: Mayor care to address the rumors that you can't wipe
Speaker 3: your own push?
Speaker 8: First off, even wiping her own butt on the toilet?
Speaker 5: Ye?
Speaker 2: Like, but I'm gonna say wiping your but can he
Speaker 2: wipe your butt on the toilet? Yes? He had aggressive? Yeah,
Speaker 2: very good.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Karen Bass needs to get out of office leave now.
Speaker 3: So one of the issues that I have when we
Speaker 3: talk about the political aspect is I'm gonna go out
Speaker 3: on a limb and guess that that that.
Speaker 2: This caller who's upset with Karen Bass.
Speaker 3: And I'm not certainly not disagreeing with him or feel
Speaker 3: like he's wrong, but was he ever a Karen Bass fan?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: It's like one of the one of the issues with
Speaker 3: our biases nowadays, and it's always been there's a confirmation bias.
Speaker 3: It's always been there, but it seems to be exacerbated
Speaker 3: because of the I'm gonna call it social media.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call it the quick access.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna call it the instant gratification of our biases
Speaker 3: that we're that we can seek out like opinions online,
Speaker 3: on air, all these different places. So you kind of
Speaker 3: go into an administration going they're going to screw it up.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to watch Karen Bass screw it up,
Speaker 3: and then I'm gonna be angry and my vote will
Speaker 3: be justified because I'm gonna say she was a moron.
Speaker 3: And likewise, if you voted for uh, if you voted
Speaker 3: for Karen Bass, you go why is everybody being so
Speaker 3: mean to Karen Bass. She's not the one that called
Speaker 3: for the National Guard. Karen Bass is not the you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. So all we're doing is just
Speaker 3: expressing opinions that we've had all along, and we're just
Speaker 3: plugging it. It's like a mad libs like Karen Bass
Speaker 3: needs to go? Why and you go, well, it is
Speaker 3: it today that I don't like about protests?
Speaker 2: Karen Bass needs to go? Why protests? Right? Karen Bass
Speaker 2: is terrible? And why is it fires right now?
Speaker 3: I think she's been disastrous when it comes to a
Speaker 3: number of different issues.
Speaker 2: I didn't vote for her either.
Speaker 3: But also it's like I always have to be cautious
Speaker 3: when I hear people say, well this is this just
Speaker 3: shows you how terrible she is. Like you know you
Speaker 3: were always going to say she was terrible. I mean,
Speaker 3: Karen baskets save a box full of puppies on.
Speaker 2: The side of the freeway. Sheean. Now you want to
Speaker 2: take her, you would say, is she speaking? Well, right,
Speaker 2: let's take her life.
Speaker 9: I want to play into the administration's hands. We're working
Speaker 9: with officials, we're organizing resources, but what we're seeing in
Speaker 9: Los Angeles is chaos. That is provoked by the administration.
Speaker 9: When you raid home depot and workplaces, when you tear
Speaker 9: parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans
Speaker 9: through our streets, you cause fear and you cost panic,
Speaker 9: and deploying federalized troops is a dangerous escalation. But we
Speaker 9: need to be real about this. This is about another agenda.
Speaker 9: It's not about public safety. There's clearly no plan and
Speaker 9: there is clearly no policy. I want the people of
Speaker 9: Los Angeles to know that we stand with all Angelinos,
Speaker 9: no matter where you were born. The First Amendment right
Speaker 9: gives you the ability again to protest peacefully, but it
Speaker 9: does not give you the right to be violent, to
Speaker 9: create chaos, or to vandalize property, and that will not
Speaker 9: be tolerated. So I call on all Angelinos to continue
Speaker 9: expressing your right, your anger, your outrage, but to do
Speaker 9: it peacefully. And I just have to say that all
Speaker 9: of you were there Friday. Everybody knows what happened Friday.
Speaker 9: A workplace. Several workplaces were targeted and raids took place. Now,
Speaker 9: in the beginning, the administration said they were just looking
Speaker 9: for dangerous felons, violent people. It's hard to say that
Speaker 9: that's what they found at a workplace, are in a
Speaker 9: home depot, parking lot. When this happens, it terrifies people.
Speaker 9: It sends a sense of fear and chaos in our city.
Speaker 9: And you well remember a few years ago in the
Speaker 9: last administration that kids were afraid to go to school,
Speaker 9: parents were afraid to go to work. This impacts all
Speaker 9: of our city. You can't terrify the workplace work for
Speaker 9: and then expect for people to get the jobs done.
Speaker 9: So if you think about a father that went into
Speaker 9: a factory and now his family doesn't know where he is.
Speaker 9: The detainees have not been allowed to speak to legal counsel.
Speaker 9: That is a market departure from what has happened in
Speaker 9: the past.
Speaker 1: When you think ad two Los Angeles, Orange County.
Speaker 9: Children on another side of town, that impacts that family
Speaker 9: as well as her family. And so this is something
Speaker 9: that I think should not be happening in our city.
Speaker 9: And I join with the governor and appealing to the
Speaker 9: administration to ressind the order to federalize the National Guard
Speaker 9: and allow the National Guard to come back under the
Speaker 9: control of the governor. So with that we can open
Speaker 9: it up for questions, yes, protests, that were demonstrations I
Speaker 9: should say, did start off peforele been here since right
Speaker 9: in the morning, but then it's they scattered.
Speaker 1: And there moved right.
Speaker 9: Where is the LAPD in terms of being here to
Speaker 9: be able to deal with that and maybe stop.
Speaker 5: Them before they able to roll?
Speaker 9: Sure, well, I think that basically they were overrun. But
Speaker 9: what is happening now is that the freeway is cleared.
Speaker 9: The California Highway Patrol, as you know, is in charge
Speaker 9: of the freeways, so they have moved all of the
Speaker 9: protesters back. They still might be there, but they are
Speaker 9: beginning to be dispersed. But LAPD is on the perimeter,
Speaker 9: so lap is actively involved. You know that there were
Speaker 9: hundreds of protesters on the freeway and thousands of protesters
Speaker 9: off the freeway, so there is a joint collaboration going
Speaker 9: with the CHP, the LAPD, and then frankly the National Guard.
Speaker 9: But you also know that the National Guard is deployed
Speaker 9: to protect federal property, so there is a National Guard
Speaker 9: troops in Westwood at the Federal building and also here downtown.
Speaker 9: May have you reached after the federal government where they
Speaker 9: been doing though right now with me at your no,
Speaker 9: my disappointment. As I've been talking to the federal government
Speaker 9: for days, I was hoping to prevent this situation from that,
Speaker 9: You're going.
Speaker 2: To continue to take questions.
Speaker 3: That's Mayor Karen Bass who's addressing the protests that have
Speaker 3: gone on today. The roads being blocked up. One on
Speaker 3: one was shut down, continues to be shut down. However,
Speaker 3: the protesters that were on one on one seem to
Speaker 3: be back completely, back up off the freeway and onto
Speaker 3: the surface streets. We'll continue with coverage and get a
Speaker 3: few more of your thoughts as we uh focus in
Speaker 3: on the protests that have gone on downtown today, the
Speaker 3: third day of protests for people who are protesting ice
Speaker 3: and in the immigration crackdown that's happening around Los Angeles
Speaker 3: and the rest of the country. To be honest, Chris
Speaker 3: Merril KFI AM six forty, We're live everywhere in the
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app kf I AM six Demand