Thousands gathered at the Westwood Federal Building in Los Angeles today where they started their march against the US-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. I was fortunate enough to be there.

Before the march even started, one man scaled a traffic light to hang a banner which read “We are all Gazan”, much to the cheer of the crowd below. After descending, he was arrested by police who were forced to retreat several yards behind a line of pigs on horseback from a fast advancing crowd chanting “let him go”. It is there where an intense stand-off between us and the police took place. Several protesters were pushed with batons and one man caught between the crowd and the cops even claimed to have been hit in the face by an officer without cause. He had the lump to prove it. Organizers of the event (the ANSWER Coalition) were able to convince the crowd to turn back from this distraction and join the march which had already gotten underway.

During the march there was a funeral procession with coffins draped with Palestinian flags, followed by individuals of all affiliations. After the march had concluded we were back in front of the federal building when a young man, perhaps inspired by the heroism he had seen earlier, climbed one of the many flag poles in front of the building to tie a Palestinian flag below the American flag already there. He too was arrested and an even larger stand-off with chants followed. I talked briefly with one man around my age who said it was his little cousin. Unfortunately, he didn’t know anymore than I did about the incident or where he had been taken.

I took plenty of video footage today. Unfortunately, my computer is dead (I’m borrowing one to type this) so it’ll be about a week or so before I get my new computer to edit the video. If you were at the event and would like to be informed via email of when I post this vid, please send me a message stating so at ManilaRyce@gmail.com