Ferguson protesters march in Beverly Hills, Echo Park
Dozens of demonstrators marched through Beverly Hills and Echo Park on Friday afternoon to protest a Missouri grand jury’s rejection of charges for a Ferguson police officer in the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown, police said.
The larger of the marches was occurring west of downtown L.A., where protesters were blocking traffic. Los Angeles police were on scene and trying to keep them on sidewalks.
In Beverly Hills, 60 marchers periodically sat down in the roadway but did not disrupt traffic or shoppers, and there were no arrests, Beverly Hills police Lt. Dave Hamel said.
Dozens of officers had fanned out through the retail district to monitor the demonstrators, who arrived shortly after 3 p.m. and broke up into several groups that threaded past the luxury retail outlets on the busiest shopping day of the year.
Los Angeles police have arrested hundreds of demonstrators since the Monday decision clearing Officer Darren Wilson of criminal charges in the death of the unarmed teenager.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck ordered all the protesters eligible for release to be freed in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
“Crowds of protesters gathering again tonight near 101 & 110 fwys,” the California Highway Patrol tweeted. “We are in full force assisting.”
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Former staff writer Gale Holland covered addiction and homelessness for the Los Angeles Times. Starting in 2005, she edited the law enforcement and legal affairs beat, wrote news columns and covered higher education. A series about college construction abuses she wrote with Michael Finnegan won an investigative reporting award from the Nieman Foundation. A Los Angeles native, she has extensive experience covering courts for Copley News Service and USA Today, and she has worked as an editor and a writer for LA Weekly and the Daily Journal.