|
The U-Haul truck, with a window and side mirrors shattered, was
stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars. ABC7
news helicopter footage showed officers keeping the crowd at bay
as demonstrators swarmed the truck, throwing punches at the
driver and thrusting flagpoles through the driver's side window.
The driver, a man who was not identified, was detained “pending
further investigation,” police said in a statement Sunday
evening.
The police statement said one person was hit by the truck but
nobody was seriously hurt. Two people were evaluated by
paramedics and both declined treatment, the Los Angeles Fire
Department said.
A banner attached on the truck said "“No Shah. No Regime. USA:
Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah,” an apparent reference to a
U.S.-backed coup that year that toppled then Prime Minister
Mohammad Mossadegh.
The August 1953 coup stemmed from U.S. fears over the Soviet
Union increasingly wanting a piece of Iran as Communists
agitated within the country. The ground had been laid partially
by the British, who wanted to wrest back access to the Iranian
oil industry, which had been nationalized earlier by Mossadegh.
The coup toppled Mossadegh and cemented the power of Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It also lit the fuse for the 1979 Islamic
Revolution, which saw the fatally ill shah flee Iran and
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini usher in the theocracy that still
governs the country.
A huge crowd of demonstrators, some waving the flag of Iran
before the Islamic Revolution,, had gathered Sunday afternoon
along Veteran Avenue in LA's Westwood neighborhood to protest
against the Iranian theocracy. Police eventually issued a
dispersal order, and by 5 p.m. only about a hundred protesters
were still in the area, ABC7 reported.
Activists say a crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran has
killed more than 530 people. Protesters flooded the streets in
Iran's capital of Tehran and its second-largest city again
Sunday.
Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian community outside of
Iran.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights
reserved |
|
