For seven straight days and nights, a group of mostly strangers came together outside of the Federal Detention Center on Alameda Street in DTLA to gather food, water, and other supplies, while protesting the federal immigration raids and keeping tabs on the vehicles coming in and out of the building.
On Friday morning, the 24-hour protest came to an end, when police and sanitation workers used city laws that are typically used to displace and arrest unhoused people, to break up the encampment known as the “ICE Out of L.A. Camp.”
Police pulled up to the Federal Building at around 10 a.m. and quickly blocked off the entirety of Alameda Street between Temple and Commercial Streets with yellow tape.
City workers focused on several canopies shielding cases of water, boxes of snacks, megaphones, know your rights pamphlets, and art supplies from the sun and 80 degree heat.
By noon, everything was gone, minus some personal items that protesters were able to save.
“We lost lots of food and water,” a protester told L.A. TACO after the sweep “That’s all material stuff though, we’re not going to let that break us.”