Pro-Palestinian Protesters Riot Near LA Airport, 36 Arrested

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

For those who aren’t from the area, the largest airport in southern California is LAX. One of the major routes to get to LAX is to take the 405 Freeway and get off on Century Blvd. Today a group of pro-Palestinian protesters blocked off part of Century Blvd. creating a traffic nightmare for shuttle buses and people trying to enter the airport.

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Dozens of pro-Palestinian supporters were arrested Wednesday morning after staging a protest near the Los Angeles International Airport.

The group of about 40 people gathered at Century Boulevard near the entrance to LAX around 9 a.m.

A Los Angeles Police Department captain told Eyewitness News the protest shut down the street for about 30 minutes, but other entrances to the airport remained open.

Police arrived as the protesters were piling stuff in the street.

They then ran for it and tried to escape but the majority of them wound up being arrested.

Several protesters were seen scaling walls and running onto nearby surface streets and into neighborhoods before being ripped down by officers wearing riot gear and detained.

Others were taken into custody in the long-term parking lot or in hotel parking lots adjacent to the airport, Prickett said…

Approximately 36 people were arrested and booked for rioting, LAPD said…

LAPD emphasized that this was not a peaceful protest. One police officer was thrown to the ground and one protester is being charged with battery of an officer. The rest are being charged with rioting.

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There is lots of video of all of this. Here’s an overhead view of the group.

And here’s a report from a local news chopper:

A very similar protest happened this morning outside JFK airport in New York:

More than two dozen pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested Wednesday morning after they blocked traffic heading to Kennedy International Airport in New York City during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year, according to the Port Authority Police Department…

During the demonstration, the protesters held hands, forming a line that stretched across the highway, and they carried banners with messages including “Divest From Genocide,” “Let Gaza Live” and “Right to Return.” Behind them, bumper-to-bumper traffic stretched as far as the eye could see across all three lanes.

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Naturally, they were chanting “From the river to the sea.” The line between pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas is pretty thin in many cases.

Police showed up and 26 protesters were arrested. You can see people dragging their bags over the guardrail trying to make their flights.

That was it today but there was a similar protest in Chicago just before Christmas.

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All three of these poorly attended protests/riots probably only succeeded in making people really angry. Ideally, the rioters would serve some actual jail time for this stunt but in LA or NYC there’s probably a good chance the charges will be dropped.

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