Latest news with #antiTrumpProtest
ABC News
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Fatal shooting of Samoan fashion designer Afa Ah Loo at the anti-Trump rally has left community in shock
Arthur Folasa Ah Loo — known as Afa Ah Loo — was a self-taught artist who loved to reach deep into his Samoan heritage for the designs that earned him his growing reputation. It even inspired his foray into Hollywood, when he dressed Moana 2 star Auli'i Cravalho in a custom draped shell top and black high waisted pants at the movie's world premiere last year. But friends also remember the 39-year-old Samoan man and Utah resident, who was fatally shot an anti-Trump "No Kings" protest in Salt Lake City on Saturday, for the other qualities that made him so loved in his community. "Besides all of his other accolades of being a designer, I would say, for me, first and foremost he was a very good father," Susi Malohifo'ou, a Tongan woman living in Salt Lake City, said. Mr Ah Loo, a husband and father to two young children, died a day before Father's Day, which was celebrated on Sunday in the US. Mr Ah Loo participated at one of the hundreds of anti-Trump marches held across United States that day, events which drew crowds in the tens of thousands. The Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD) said he was hit by gunfire on Saturday night local time despite being an "innocent bystander". It happened as a "peacekeeper" fired their gun at a man who witnesses say was running towards the crowd with a rifle, police said. Police in Utah are investigating the fatal shooting. Mr Ah Loo later died in hospital — and a community is in mourning. Utah's Pacific Islander community is in shock, and is remembering him as a "family person", an "advocate" for Samoans, and "a very kind person". Ms Malohifo'ou said the fashion designer had "gone places where few Polynesians have been" in the industry. "He went places where, you know, other designers had never gone," she said. He founded Creative Pacific, an event celebrating the diversity of the Pacific Islands, with workshops, artists and a fashion runway. And in a sign of his growing fame, Mr Ah Loo was also on Season 17 of the fashion design reality TV show "Project Runway". A GoFundMe page set up for his family after the shooting described Mr Ah Loo as "a proud Samoan, deeply connected to his culture and community". "Through his work with the non-profit [group] Creative Pacific and his incredible talent as a fashion designer, he shared his heritage with passion and creativity," it says. "But more than anything, Afa was proud of the life he built with his wife and their two beautiful children." He was also a mentor at the Nafanua Foundation, a non-profit based in Salt Lake City empowering Samoan women and youth through cultural programs "He really just wanted to be an artist," Ms Malohifo'ou said. But those who knew him weren't surprised he joined protesters marching in protest against Trump on Saturday. "He loved his community, he loved his people and I'm not surprised that he was there at the protest and standing up for what he believed in," Vitoria Tanuvasa Misivila, a Samoan living in Salt Lake City who knew Mr Ah Loo, said. She was at the demonstration when she heard gunshots towards the end of the event. Ms Misivila later learnt that Mr Ah Loo had been shot. She described him as a giant of the Samoan community. "Not just in Utah, but worldwide. A great friend, a great advocate for our Samoan community," she said. "It's heartbreaking." The marches, staged to coincide with US President Donald Trump's birthday and a military parade in Washington DC, took place after the culmination of a week of demonstrations in Los Angeles. The protests were initially triggered by raids on local businesses by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. People marching in the US on Saturday said they were motivated by a range of causes, including what they saw as Mr Trump's use of power beyond his constitutional authority through his deployment of troops to manage the protests in LA. Ms Misivila, who was at the same protest as Mr Ah Loo, said that up until she heard the gunshots, the march had been peaceful. "I'm at a loss for words," she said. The Utah Office of the Medical Examiner will determine the official cause and manner of Mr Ah Loo's death. "The preliminary investigation shows Ah Loo was participating in the demonstration and appears to have been an innocent bystander who was not the intended target of the gunfire," the Salt Lake City Police Department said in a written statement on Sunday. They said the incident started when "peacekeepers" at the march saw a man wearing black, who police identified as 24-year-old Arturo Gamboa, pull out an AR-15-style rifle from a backpack. Police said he ran from the "peacekeepers" when they confronted him. Salt Lake City police chief Brian Redd told a press conference that Mr Gamboa did not fire his weapon. But they have charged Mr Gamboa with murder, because they believed Mr Gamboa "knowingly engaged in conduct that created a grave risk of death and ultimately caused the death of an innocent community member". "Our detectives are now working to thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding this incident," Mr Redd said. "We will not allow this individual act to create fear in our community." ABC/AP
The Guardian
15-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Los Angeles police fire teargas to disperse crowds at Trump protest
Los Angeles police moved aggressively to disperse the last of the crowds at Saturday's otherwise peaceful anti-Trump protest downtown, using officers on horseback to clear an area around a federal building with batons and wooden sticks. They fired tear canisters and foam rubber bullets when some of the demonstrators started to regroup. Hours after the main part of the protest had concluded and most of the participants and organizers had left, a crowd of a few dozen people congregated outside a federal office building, away from the approved protest zone, and began shouting at a line of stone-faced US marines standing guard outside the plate-glass entrance. 'Leave LA! Leave LA!' they chanted at the soldiers, ordered into the city by Donald Trump to the fury of California's political leadership and many ordinary Angelenos. As the standoff intensified, the marines stepped forward with riot shields to stop the protesters from climbing a set of steps leading up to the entrance. The Los Angeles police issued a dispersal order, which some in the crowd appear not to have heard, declaring the protest to be an 'unlawful assembly'. The horses arrived at about 4pm, and the teargas started flying shortly after. While the many hours of officially sanctioned protest earlier had been overwhelmingly joyful, with music and chanting and little evident police presence besides a helicopter hovering above, the tail end felt immediately more confrontational. The hostility towards the marines stood in contrast to earlier scenes of demonstrators shaking hands with national guard troops stationed outside a federal courthouse, offering them water and taking selfies. The change in atmosphere was reminiscent of the late afternoon of the first big protest in the same part of the city last Sunday, when a minority of protesters, many of them heavily masked, threw bottles and charged at police lines and ended up throwing rocks at police cruisers and setting cars on fire. Some of the demonstrators who regrouped after the afternoon's initial dispersal had umbrellas to fend off police projectiles. Others wore helmets and gas masks. The confrontations kept going for at least an hour and spilled over from the area outside the federal building and a nearby federal courthouse back towards city hall, where the earlier rally and march had begun. Jim McDonnell, the Los Angeles police chief, told a news briefing earlier in the day that his officers would do everything they could to safeguard people's right to protest peacefully but would not hesitate to make arrests if people broke the law. Last Tuesday, Mayor Karen Bass instituted a nightly curfew in downtown Los Angeles, starting at 8pm, after days of vandalism and violence on the fringes of otherwise peaceful protest. Ahead of the day's 'No Kings' protests, Bass had warned of the potential political consequences of failing to remain peaceful. 'Please, please do not give the administration an excuse to intervene,' she told the early morning news briefing. 'Let's make sure we show the world the best of Los Angeles and our country. Let's stand in contrast to the provocation, escalation and violence.' Los Angeles' civic leaders did not immediately comment on the late afternoon trouble or provide arrest numbers. The LA Times reported one protester receiving stitches after being shot in the nose with a rubber bullet and another with a broken finger. Some demonstrators told the paper they had scaled a chain-link fence to get away from police officers chasing them.
New York Times
14-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
An arrest was made after a 'credible threat' to Texas lawmakers, an official said.
A person was taken into custody on Saturday afternoon in connection with what the Texas Department of Public Safety said was a 'credible threat' to the safety of state lawmakers attending an anti-Trump protest in Austin, according to a law enforcement official. The threat had prompted the temporary closure of the Texas State Capitol grounds, and the law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation, said the person taken into custody was found in the town of La Grange, Texas, between Austin and Houston. The threat came after shootings that killed a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband and wounded another Minnesota lawmaker and his wife early on Saturday. The Texas Department of Public Safety sent a warning to Texas lawmakers early Saturday afternoon and said it was concerned about people who could be inspired by the Minnesota killings. The message to lawmakers, sent around 1 p.m. Central time, said the Minnesota attack 'seems to be an isolated incident.' 'However, we're always concerned about copycats and those who this attack might inspire,' it read. 'I received it and I was like whoa, it could easily have been one of us, easily,' said State Representative Ron Reynolds, a Houston-area Democrat who was in Houston on Saturday and spoke at a protest that attracted roughly 15,000 people. 'You have to take it seriously,' Mr. Reynolds said, adding that what happened in Minnesota was 'awful.' 'It's a threat to democracy. But it's real. We can't let them silence us, but we have to be vigilant,' he said. Around 4:45 p.m., lawmakers received another update from the state police saying they had 'addressed the earlier reported threat' and that the Capitol grounds had been reopened.
