LA County DA Nathan Hochman on Prosecuting Violent Protesters

Defense of First Amendment Rights

• 🗣️ The DA's office will fiercely defend the rights of people to exercise their First Amendment rights of speech and assembly.
• ✅ Thousands of people have protested legitimately, but protected speech crossing the line into illegal conduct will be met with arrest, prosecution, and punishment.

Charges Filed Against Protesters

• ⚖️ Charges have been announced against eight individuals for actions during recent protests.
• 💥 These include firing commercial fireworks at police, driving motorcycles into officers, and reckless driving with a loaded ghost gun.
• vandalism charges have been filed against individuals who defaced public property with vile sayings on historic buildings.
• 🛍️ Charges were also brought against two individuals involved in the theft of a Nike store downtown.

Accountability and Future Prosecutions

• 🚨 The DA emphasizes that a small minority among thousands of protesters are using the events to commit crimes and will be held accountable.
• 📅 Law enforcement has hundreds of arrests to process and can pursue individuals for weeks, months, or even years using social media and video evidence.
• 📹 Even if crimes are not stopped in real-time, overwhelming video evidence will be used to identify, arrest, and prosecute offenders.

Law Enforcement Response and Strategy

• 👮 Officers face split-second decisions in crowd control versus immediate arrest, prioritizing crowd management when necessary.
• 📈 Law enforcement learns from night to night, improving strategies by assessing officer numbers, locations, and resources like transport buses.
• 🏛️ Both state prosecutions by the DA's office and misdemeanor prosecutions by the LA city attorney's office will occur, with the federal government also pursuing charges for attacks on federal officers.