L.A. City Council president decries violence that erupted at ant

Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez denounced the violence
that erupted at an anti-vaccination rally in front of City Hall over the
weekend resulting in one man being stabbed and a journalist being
attacked.

“Not wearing a mask and being anti-vax isn’t patriotism — it’s
stupidity,” Martinez tweeted late Saturday night. “We have to be able to
have differences of opinions without resorting to violence. Attacking
counter-protesters and journalists has no place in a democracy and
certainly no place in Los Angeles.”

The man who was stabbed at the rally was still hospitalized, police said Monday.
The
man was not identified and no information was given about the extent of
his injury. No arrest has been reported in connection with the
stabbing, or in an attack on a journalist that was also reported at the
rally, said Officer Mike Lopez of the Los Angeles Police Department.

A crowd of several hundred people, many holding American flags and signs
calling for “medical freedom,” had descended on City Hall around 2 p.m.
Saturday for the planned rally. A few dozen counterprotesters had
amassed on 1st Street near the former offices of the L.A. Times before
the clash.

A fight erupted on the corner of 1st and Spring streets shortly after
2:30 p.m., as counterprotesters in all black and anti-vaccine
demonstrators draped in American flag garb and Trump memorabilia traded
punches and threw things at one another. It was not immediately clear
how the fight started, though each side quickly blamed the other.
One
person, whom the anti-mask protesters claimed was part of their rally,
could be seen collapsed in the intersection, bleeding. Police on the
scene said the person had been stabbed, and paramedics arrived to take
him to a hospital.

A short time later, KPCC reporter Frank Stoltze could be seen walking
out of the park near City Hall being screamed at by anti-mask
protesters. One man could be seen kicking him. Stoltze later told a
police officer he had been assaulted while trying to conduct an
interview.

Stoltze later tweeted this statement: “Something
happened to me today that’s never happened in 30 yrs of reporting. In
LA. ⁦@LAist⁩ I was shoved, kicked and my eyeglasses were ripped off of
my face by a group of guys at a protest — outside City Hall during an
anti-vax Recall ⁦@GavinNewsom⁩ Pro Trump rally.”
The incident

follows two other clashes that occurred in recent weeks between
far-right extremists and left-wing groups over transgender access at a
spa in Koreatown. Video footage of a female customer complaining to an
employee of the spa that she had seen a customer with a penis in an area
that is reserved for women went viral.
The spa told The Times
that it is required to follow California law that prohibits businesses
from discriminating against customers based on race, gender, sexual
identity or expression.

On July 17, far-right extremists, including members of the Proud
Boys, and left-wing protesters faced off outside Wi Spa. When protesters
began to clash, the LAPD declared an unlawful assembly and used
projectiles and batons and arrested 40 people — mostly for failure to
disperse.

Some who attended the protest described minimal
violence between the two groups, and claimed the LAPD engaged in
excessive use of force toward the counterprotesters. During the first Wi
Spa protest July 3, right-wing demonstrators and counterprotesters
brawled in the streets before police were able to break up the fighting.

Alex Wigglesworth is an environment reporter who covers wildfires for the Los Angeles Times. Before joining the newsroom in 2016, she was a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. A Philadelphia native, she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in medical anthropology and global health. She currently lives in Inglewood.

James Queally writes about crime and policing in Southern California,
where he currently covers Los Angeles County’s criminal courts and the
district attorney’s office.