los angeles — Los Angeles police responded Sunday after a person drove a U-Haul box truck onto a street crowded with protesters demonstrating in support of… Iranian peopleWhich prompted the demonstrators to move away from the road and then run after the speeding car to try to attack the driver.
The U-Haul truck, which had its windows and side mirrors smashed, was stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars. ABC7 News helicopter footage showed officers keeping the crowd at bay as protesters swarmed the truck, punching the driver and pushing flagpoles through the driver’s side window.
The driver, a man whose identity has not been revealed, was arrested “pending further investigation,” police said in a statement on Sunday evening.
The police statement said the truck hit a person, but no one was seriously injured. The Los Angeles Fire Department said paramedics evaluated two people and both refused treatment.
“No Shah. No Regime. USA: Do not repeat 1953. No Mullah,” read a banner attached to the truck, an apparent reference to the US-backed coup that year that ousted then-Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh.
the The August 1953 coup stemmed from US fears Because the Soviet Union increasingly wanted a piece of Iran as communists moved into the country. The way was partly paved by the British, who wanted to regain access to the Iranian oil industry, which Mossadegh had earlier nationalized.
The coup overthrew Mossadeq and consolidated the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He also lit the fuse of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which witnessed The Shah, stricken with a fatal illness, flees Iran and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini enters the theocracy Who still rules the country.
A large crowd of demonstrators, some waving the flag of pre-Islamic Revolution Iran, gathered Sunday afternoon along Veteran Street in Los Angeles’ Westwood neighborhood to protest Iran’s theocracy. Police eventually issued a dispersal order, and by 5 p.m., there were only about a hundred protesters in the area, ABC7 reported.
Activists say crackdown Popular protests in Iran More than 530 people were killed. Protesters flooded the streets of Iran’s capital and second-largest city, Tehran, again on Sunday.
Los Angeles is home to The largest Iranian community Outside Iran.