East L.A – Lakers Celebration 2009 by Eriksarni.com
In case you missed it in the comments section, LA Eastside compadre Erik Sarni captured the joyous and peaceful Lakers victory celebration on Whittier Blvd in East LA last night. Looked like fun, that is until the cops kicked everyone off the street.
I have a suggestion for the City of Los Angeles, instead of spending a million dollars to put on a Lakers victory parade just ask the good folks in East LA to help out. They managed to have an impromptu parade and did it for free, DIY style. They’re good at catching serial killers too!
Jesus Christ. I know the police have a job to do, but did anyone else notice how relatively peaceful everything was until the police showed up? All of a sudden, it looked like Iran. Sirens everywhere, people stampeding down the street, a megaphone with a sheriff threatening to make arrests, sheriffs armed with shotguns in the middle of the street….WTF, LASD? This is why. This is why whenever there’s a scandal in LA’s law enforcement, they get little to no support outside of the conservative crowd that supports them no matter what they do. The picture at 8:40 in the video is just disgusting. It’s excessive. I don’t give a shit what the sheriff department’s excuse is. They would never think of doing it to a middle class college crowd.
Big props to Erik Sarni for capturing this. This is what the media doesn’t let us see…East Siders celebrating peacefully and the police being the ones to start the chaos. Excellent documentation.
Another impromptu celebration allowed to take its course and handled judiciously by the LASD. This was no MacArthur Park Rob Thomas. The cops had a job to do and handled it well. There were no beatings like you saw from the Iran coverage. how can you make such a comparison? Lakers Rule.
Thank You LAPD.for stopping those looters and firestartes in the streets. It is very shameful and embarrasing all over the country. Destroying private property, breaking into stores . I thought this was a happy celebration!! Destroying property, starting fires, creating anarchy in the streets over a basketball team!!! this is very childish. Adults are supposed to set a good roles for our children. This act makes LA look like a bunch of monkeys running free in the streets with no morals or respect for the LA city. Is this how we treat our city?The Lakers are sure in hell not proud at all , I assume. You all should be ashamed of yourselves, runing in the streets ,Gee it wa 10:00 p.m. did you know where your kids were while you were acting like a teenager screaming in the streets.
Hi Lorraine,
If you watch the above video, you will see this is a clip from the celebration in East LA not at the Staples Center. You didn’t see much of what was going on in East LA because they weren’t doing anything but having fun. It’s a perfect example of how the media manipulates stories and images and creates these negative stereotypes of communities.
Rob,
I wish I could say the reaction by the sheriffs in East LA was surprising but having been at a number of police initiated “riots” I’d say their actions are to be expected.
Police in Los Angeles are notorious for getting jumpy/antsy/nervous around large crowds. I was at a Depeche Mode record signing that turned into a “riot” that’s how ridiculous it gets here! Lol! Then there was the Ramones riot at the LA Street Scene, the World Cup riots in Huntington Park where I saw the cops shoot a viejita coming out of a store with some kind of projectile etc…It’s life in Los Angeles…