By Jared Downing, Isabel Vincent and Alex Oliveira. Media: Nypost
LOS ANGELES — Leftwing nonprofit groups are openly helping to fuel anti-ICE riots here by handing out “F–k ICE” packs with protective equipment — as protesters continue to take over downtown every night and engage in rolling battles with cops, federal agents and National Guard troops.
Chilling footage revealed one unidentified group handing out a truckload of face shields and other riot gear to protesters in downtown Los Angeles.
The “F–k ICE” packages — which include goggles, facemasks, gloves and a phone number for “jail support” — are being assembled and distributed by a nonprofit called Operation Healthy Hearts.
operationhealthyhearts/Instagram
It’s just one of several organizations that started as grassroots community aid agencies, but have been wading into politics and throwing their weight behind left-wing street protests.
At least one group received federal funding before the Trump administration turned off the spigot.
“[The federal government] cut off our funding for other reasons, so we really have nothing left to lose,” LA Poverty Department COO Pamela Miller told The Post.
That group, an arts nonprofit that operates the Skid Row History Museum & Archive, allowed another organization to use its building to distribute PPE packages for protesters on Monday.
Among the items available at the museum were anarchist pamphlets that advocate setting police cars on fire, burning down police precincts and targeting banks and ATMs as part of “direct action” against authorities.
Jared Downing/ NY Post
The pamphlets also include instructions on how to thwart police anti-riot tactics.
Miller, however, dismissed the violence that has occurred in LA every night as “a few knuckleheads doing stupid s–t.”
“The immigrant community is important. And they are vulnerable. [ICE] say, ‘We want to get rid of the criminals.’ Then where are they going? To churches, to schools,” Miller said. “They’re targeting people who can’t protect themselves.”
She added: “We want to support people’s rights to stand up to authoritarian takeover, and however many knuckleheads are doing stupid s–t, that doesn’t make us want to back away from standing up for our neighbors’ rights.”
Los Angeles has been a hotbedlam since protests against ICE descended into scenes of chaos by day and looting by night, with tensions intensifying as President Trump ordered thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines into the city to restore order.
LA Poverty Department was handing out PPE in the midst of that with the help of another community group, Mutual Aid/Social Therapy (MAST), which describes itself as “a decentralized project that uses the principles of mutual aid to put the tools of the psychological disciplines in the hands of the people.”
But rather than focusing on spreading therapy practices, the group has been passing out goggles and gear to help protesters evade tear gas and rubber bullets, while stoking anti-law enforcement sentiment on social media.
Like the other groups, Operation Healthy Hearts generally organizes community service like food drives for the homeless on LA’s Skid Row, but in addition to creating the “F–k ICE PPE” packs, has a long history of pumping out left-wing rhetoric on its social media — and has been denouncing law enforcement since protests started Friday.
AP
“Police are attacking journalists and protesters. We need people to look out for each other,” said Alexandra Pierce, a volunteer for the group who was handing out PPE kits in the middle of protests on Tuesday.
“I want to help people in need, and I just feel very passionate about the politics of this and want to help protect people any way I can,” she added.
Another group that has been advertising the “F–k ICE” kits, Mutual Aid Los Angeles Network (MALAN), says it’s a central information network for aid groups and nonprofits — including MAST and Operation Healthy Hearts.
Operation Healthy Hearts only just received its tax-exempt nonprofit status last month, and bills itself as a homeless outreach group that runs food banks and helps provide public health resources to the homeless population.
MALAN was founded in March 2020 in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also has a history of supporting partisan left-wing causes on social media, including anti-Israel protests.
Protests broke out in LA Friday after ICE raided numerous workplaces across the city and hauled off suspected illegal immigrants.
Demonstrators then tried to pre-empt ICE arrivals at other locations and block its efforts, and picketed a downtown detention center where detainees were being held.
But ICE says many of the people it arrested in the raids are known criminals with alarming rap sheets — including some with convictions for violent attempted rapes and even murder.
Some of the protests quickly turned violent, with city streets being left littered with burning cars by day and looters ransacking storefronts by night.
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