The LA City Council barred protesters till Friday, saying it will not in future allow meeting disruptions.
Paul Krekorian—the City Council President—started off Friday’s meeting by asking a bunch of shouting protestors to be seated, and when they kept shouting, had LAPD officers remove them from the chambers.
“There will be no more warnings for everyone who is in these council chambers. These disruptions will not go forward,” he said at the beginning of Friday’s meeting. “You will be excluded from the meeting if you do not immediately take a seat and be silent.”
Protestors have been making it to every council meeting held on-site, since the highly controversial leaked recordings of council members Gil Cedillo, Kevin de Leon, and Nury Martinez got out in early October.
The weeks since then saw the council allowing the public space and opportunity to publicly display discontent, holding meetings while the chambers were filled with continuous chanting.
On Friday, it took over 20 minutes to escort out protestors. These excluded individuals were also told that they cannot participate in the council meeting following that.
The People’s City Council, which is an organization known for often advocating for protestors, kept calling for Cedillo and de Leon to resign. “These meetings are happening against the will of the people,” they tweeted Friday. “NO RESIGNATIONS, NO MEETINGS.”
Before the meeting resumed, Krekorian spoke to the protestors, saying council meetings won’t “shut down.”
“We understand that there will be attempts to disrupt this council meeting from time to time and we’re going to deal with it as best we can, in a way that de-escalated the situation,” Krekorian said. “But one thing is very clear and very certain, and everyone in Los Angeles should understand, these meetings of the city council will not shut down. We will proceed with the business of the people of Los Angeles despite people coming in here and trying to disrupt this meeting.”