Four protesters were arrested Saturday as hundreds of demonstrators marched in Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles, with dozens staging a die-in at police headquarters, in the latest in a series of demonstrations against officer-involved deaths of unarmed black men in Los Angeles, New York and Ferguson.
The demonstrators, three females and one male, were facing charges of failing to disperse, police said. They were taken into custody in the area of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, where officers were keeping watch over about 50 protesters.
"I'm terrified of the police, because I'm a brown man. When I have a beard they look at me as if I'm some kind of a threat," said protester Sergio Ballesteeros.
"It is just not a black thing or a white thing, it's a human thing," said another demonstrator.
Protesters gathered at noon at Pershing Square and at 1 p.m. at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, where an allegedly knife-wielding man was shot dead by police last week.
Dozens of protesters made their way to Los Angeles Police Department headquarters in the 100 block of Spring Street, where they laid down in the street.
No arrests were reported and there were no special deployments for the protests, an LAPD spokeswoman said. But the headquarters building was surrounded by metal barricades until about an hour after the protesters dispersed.
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The California Highway Patrol reported that officers were on hand to keep protesters from possibly blocking Hollywood (101) Freeway ramps.
One person was taken into custody Friday night as marching protesters disrupted traffic on Sunset Boulevard after gathering at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, according to a report from the scene.
Saturday’s protests were organized by the groups Answer LA, Stop Mass Incarceration Network and Black Lives Matter.
