Sammy Carrera, a local union worker and longtime community organizer, is the last of three individuals to be released after being arrested earlier this week during a confrontation with police outside Boyle Heights City Hall.
Carrera’s release on Friday evening comes after community members gathered outside Hollenbeck Community Police Station on Thursday evening in Boyle Heights, chanting and holding signs disputing the arrests.
Protesters said they were calling out police and demanding the release of Carrera, the last person in custody, when they were met with officers in riot gear who formed a line near the sidewalk, batons at their sides, blocking the entrance of the police station.
There have been two widely diverging accounts of what led to the arrests, one from LAPD and the other from the social justice group Centro CSO that had just convened a meeting at City Hall.
Gabriel Quiroz, of Centro CSO, said about 20 LAPD cars showed up along 1st and Chicago streets, near where an unhoused man “with a stick” appeared to be having a mental health crisis in the parking lot.
Police were initially dispatched around 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 18, to a report of a man, later identified as Luis Alon, with a metal bar preventing people from leaving the public building. A City Hall representative requested police remove him, according to an LAPD spokesperson. Within an hour, Alon was arrested and eventually booked for assault on a police officer.
Quiroz said he saw police pointing their firearms at the man. “We were more worried about LAPD shooting him, and then indirectly, shooting us,” he said.
After the man was arrested, Quiroz said he and other Centro CSO members asked officers when they could get to their cars, which were in a parking lot blocked by police.
Quiroz said police responded with “rude” and “sarcastic” remarks. He added officers became aggressive. “For no reason, they put their hands on me. … They were pushing different people,” Quiroz said.
This led to two people being arrested in addition to Alon and Carrera: A juvenile who was detained but released by police and Sergio Flores, the brother of Jeremy Flores, who was shot and killed by LAPD last year in Boyle Heights. The Flores family has pushed for greater police accountability through support from Centro CSO.
Flores was released with a citation the next day, according to jail records. He declined to comment for this story.
“They literally beat and arrested multiple family members of the Jeremy Flores family. To us, it doesn’t seem like it was just an accident that they escalated on us. It seems very targeted,” Quiroz said. “We were just asking questions and they started hitting us with batons.”
According to Quiroz, at least eight Centro CSO members were shoved and struck with batons. Quiroz said their members know better than to place their hands on police officers because “they have the whole state on their side.”
LAPD declined to respond to Quiroz’s claims.
Councilmember Ysabel Jurado for District 14 was present at City Hall and observed the confrontation on Wednesday but did not provide more details, according to a spokesperson from her office.
Carrera’s partner, Jessica Rivas, attended the demonstration on Thursday with their daughters and criticized the way LAPD responds to incidents in the community.
“They’ve been targeting our people for years. They rarely get held accountable so we need to shout it out,” Rivas said.
The demands of protesters reflect broader tensions in the community where trust between the police and community members has frayed amid federal immigration operations.
Carrera grew up in Boyle Heights and is part of Teamsters Local 396, which represents thousands of members in sanitation and food delivery industries.
“If you know Sammy, you know he’s there for his community,” Rivas said.
Centro CSO members planned to meet Friday evening to discuss next steps in their efforts to “demand justice for our members.”
A LAPD spokesperson said Friday that the department is still investigating what happened.
