Priests, rabbis and other religious leaders took to the streets of Los Angeles on Monday to help keep the peace amid protests that spiraled into violence over the weekend.
The protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown intensified with the deployment of National Guard members, something local and state officials said has worsened, not improved, the situation. Additionally, hundreds of U.S. Marines are reportedly on the way to L.A.
Waymo cars were torched, businesses were ransacked and numerous injuries were reported over the weekend’s chaos.
On Monday, however, protests were much more peaceful, and religious leaders — some of them partnered with the organization Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice — made a point to discourage violence by both police and protesters at the intersection of Alameda and Aliso streets in downtown Los Angeles.
“We’re here to peacefully ask where the families are,” the Rev. Omega Burckhardt told KTLA’s Kimberly Cheng. “¿Donde están los niños? Where are the people who’ve been detained? We’re also here peacefully to support the right to protest, and we’re here to help keep a peaceful presence for folks. We understand people are very angry and very upset, and we’re here to provide a non-anxious presence.”
Another religious leader directly spoke with police following what appeared to be one person’s frustrations with officers.
“I was saying, ‘Nobody needs to get shot today, nobody needs to get harmed today,’” the Rev. Eddie Anderson told Cheng. “We can stand here and do our First Amendment right and nonviolently protest them ripping apart our families and taking away our loved ones. This is Black-brown solidarity and all religious faiths coming together. This is our Los Angeles and everyone deserves to be free in this city.”
Police and Anderson appeared to come to a common understanding, as an officer thanked the minister for his assistance in keeping that agitated crowd member from trying to break through officers, while the minister thanked police for protecting protesters as part of their duties.
“We’re not going to shoot anyone,” the officer affirmed.
Anderson’s colleagues added that their religious beliefs require them to stand up for immigrants and others targeted by the Trump administration.
Rabbi Susan Goldberg said she was defending “the deepest values of the Jewish community,” including “compassion,” “love” and “care and support for the most vulnerable.”
“It’s the most-repeated command inside our Torah to take care of the widow, the orphan and the stranger, and to treat them as family and to take care of them,” she said.
Another clergy member, the Rev. Stephen “Cue” Jn-Marie, continued to make a faith-based case for the protest, calling it “a moral obligation” to stand against the immoral crackdown.
“In Scripture and in my faith tradition, it says the two greatest commandments are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself,” he said. “They can’t be separated; you have to do them together … In order to love God, I have to love you first, because you’re created in the image of God in my faith tradition.”
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