The election of Donald Trump to the presidency sparked protests early Wednesday across California, drawing crowds to city streets and college campuses.
The demonstrations reflected sadness, anger and bursts of rage. Crowds openly disavowed the president-elect and a few resorted to vandalism.
Shortly after Trump delivered a victory speech in New York, an estimated 2,000 people rallied at UCLA when two separate demonstrations merged into one, said UCLA police Sgt. Miguel Banuelos.
The group marched from campus through Westwood Village to a federal building on Wilshire Boulevard, Banuelos said. There were no arrests.
The demonstration peaked about 1 a.m., when a Trump piñata was set on fire in a trash can outside a Westwood Boulevard store.
The small blaze aside, no major incidents were reported and police said the crowd was peaceful.
N.J. Omorogieva, 19, said she was “heartbroken” by the election’s result when she spotted the crowd in Westwood while walking home.
“Of course I joined in,” she said. “To give hugs to people who were overcome by devastation.”
In Oakland, demonstrators smashed a window at the Oakland Tribune newsroom and ignited trash containers and tires, police said.
The crowd broke windows on five businesses and vandalized another, said Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson. One citation was issued but no one was arrested, she said.
Protesters also burned Trump in effigy, KNTV reported.
At UC Santa Barbara, hundreds marched near the campus, with some chanting, “Not my president. Not my president.”
One person carried a Mexican flag, according to video posted by the student newspaper, the Daily Nexus.
About 500 students marched through the La Jolla campus of UC San Diego, protesting Trump’s win and chanting his name with an expletive.
At UCLA, some students lifted their arms up while demonstrating in Westwood Village. Others chanted, “Not my president,” according to social media users who documented the scene on the ground.
Demonstrations were also reported in downtown Los Angeles, at UC Santa Cruz and UC Irvine.
A throng marching in Oakland chanted, “Who’s got the power? We got the power.”
Protests in the Bay Area city centered downtown and also saw a march along Highway 24, where a woman was struck by an SUV. She was rushed to the hospital with “major injuries,” California Highway Patrol Sgt. Matt Langford told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Small fires in Oakland also prompted the closure of a Bay Area Rapid Transit station.
In downtown L.A., anger simmered as a crowd gathered near City Hall. Some property was defaced, including a fence scrawled with graffiti insulting Trump.
About 200 people demonstrated near Cal State Los Angeles and another 50 were at Pershing Square, said LAPD Officer Norma Eisenman. There were no arrests.
But the mood was more buoyant at the president-elect’s star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, where a small crowd of about 30 Trump supporters gathered about 1 a.m. They posed for pictures and chanted with delight.
“This is our president,” they cheered as they tried to shout down a small band of counter-protesters.
The crowd, many of them wearing the candidate’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats, chanted “USA” several times.
Two Los Angeles police officers were posted nearby and moved the crowd apart at one point to return wooden construction materials on top of the spot. The wood was installed recently after Trump’s star was defaced.
Diane Mendez, 23, a Trump supporter who volunteered at a polling place, said she came to celebrate what she saw as a turning point.
“He said he would bring jobs back to America. We all need jobs,” Mendez said. “Who doesn’t need jobs?”
At USC, students rallied around the statue of Tommy Trojan, located in the center of the private university’s campus in South Los Angeles.
One Twitter user described it as an “open forum,” with members of the USC community sharing reactions on Trump’s election.
(LA Times)
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