LOS ANGELES — Police confronted a shopkeeper, his son, and several community members as they attempted to protect a local store from looters on Monday evening in Van Nuys, Los Angeles.
Local Fox affiliate KTTV 11 captured the action live on television as the shopkeeper and his son, who were armed with shotguns and bandoliers, had just finished explaining to a reporter how they had chased away a group of looters, who had fled the scene with police in hot pursuit.
A member of the local community, whose relatives were helping the shopkeeper and his son stand guard at the store, told KTTV’s Christina Gonzalez that the store had been in the area for decades, and that the shopkeeper’s family had helped everyone in the community.
Moments later, however, another group of looters arrived in a convoy of vehicles. When the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) arrived, too, however, they ordered the armed shopkeeper and his son to surrender their weapons, and they handcuffed three community members who had been helping in the standoff with looters.
Meanwhile, the looters ran away, and some apparently escaped altogether, with other officers in pursuit.
Gonzalez pleaded with one LAPD officer to release the three community members, while the others arrested one looter.
Eventually, the three community members were released. Police nearly arrested another woman who arrived on the scene to pick up one of them, who was apparently her mother.
Los Angeles was under a 5:00 p.m. curfew in anticipation of further rioting and looting, as protesters continued holding demonstrations against the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.