Long Beach protesters showed up earlier on Sunday to demonstrate their outrage caused by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes.
What started out as a peaceful protest turned to hundreds of people breaking into businesses and looting later in the afternoon, prompting the Long Beach Police Department to interfere.
Downtown businesses have struggled the most as some business owners were seen begging looters to stop.
Shops at The Pike, like Forever 21, Nike, Columbia Factory Store, Hot Topic, were some of the businesses that were looted almost completely.
At California Pizza Kitchen, a man took a sledgehammer to the windows and broke in to loot TVs from the restaurant.
Mark Lira, co-owner of Italian restaurant L’Opera in Downtown Long Beach, rushed inside his restaurant to examine all the damage as looters broke into the boarded-up restaurant and stole and broke appliances.
“I rushed as fast as possible once I saw looters moving closer to the restaurant on TV,” Lira said.
“They destroyed and stole everything they could.”
The protest began around 3 p.m. in front of the Long Beach Police Department and moved its way down all over Downtown Long Beach.
Thousands of protesters held signs and shouted “Black Lives Matter,” and at one point completely blocked Ocean Boulevard at Alamitos Avenue to take a knee.
Participants and police in Long Beach, both emphasized they wanted Sunday’s demonstration to be peaceful. Protestors held up signs demonstrating their support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Photo by Abel Reyes.
At 5:19 p.m. a county-wide curfew was imposed for all Los Angeles County residents, stating that all people were required to be home by 6:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow.
However, Long Beach maintained an 8 p.m. curfew.
After 6 p.m., police declared an unlawful assembly in Long Beach, signaling that arrests would soon follow.
Police and protest demonstrators were at a standoff on Broadway and Pine Avenue.
The National Guard has since been sent to Long Beach to help the police department with violent protestors and looters.
In a news conference, Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna said, “Today is a sad day in our city. To see what’s occurring around us is heartbreaking.”
