Fact check: How many people were arrested at the LA protests?

1. Summary of the results

The arrest numbers need to be broken down into distinct categories and events:

• LAPD arrests during protests: 39 total arrests, with 29 made on Saturday and 10 on Sunday ^[1]
• California Highway Patrol made 17 additional arrests ^[2]
• Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department made 2 arrests in Paramount ^[3]
• Separate from the protests, ICE operations resulted in 118 immigrant arrests during the week, including 44 people specifically arrested on Friday, June 6, 2025 ^{[3] [4]}

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

Several important contextual elements were omitted from the original question:

• The arrests occurred across multiple types of events, not just protests:
• Some protest arrests were for specific criminal actions, including throwing a Molotov cocktail and ramming a motorcycle into a police line ^[1]
• The immigration arrests were part of planned federal operations, including four search warrants related to suspected harboring of undocumented individuals ^[5]
• The immigration raids occurred at specific locations:
• A clothing warehouse in the fashion district
• Outside a Home Depot ^[4]
• One labor union president was arrested for impeding a federal agent ^[4]

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

The original question's simplicity could lead to several misunderstandings:

• Timing confusion: The arrests occurred over multiple days and separate events, not in a single protest ^{[1] [3]}
• Agency confusion: Multiple law enforcement agencies were involved (LAPD, ICE, California Highway Patrol, LA County Sheriff's Department), each reporting their own numbers ^{[2] [3]}
• Context manipulation: Different groups might benefit from different interpretations of these numbers:
• Law enforcement might emphasize the criminal nature of some arrests to justify their actions ^[1]
• Immigration advocates might focus on the scale of ICE operations (44 arrests in one day) to highlight enforcement intensity ^{[4] [5]}
• Protest organizers might emphasize the "failure to disperse" arrests to suggest over-policing ^[2]