Dennis RomeroDonald Trump's mouth might be the most uncivilized thing to have graced the blue-blood hills of Brentwood, but those reacting to the GOP presidential candidate's presence in Los Angeles tonight were as civil as afternoon tea.
Mostly.
Trump sneaked into the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Brentwood at 7:55 p.m. tonight in a two-SUV caravan with the kind of tinted windows that would get just about any Latino pulled over in a heartbeat. Undocumented border-crossers would have been proud of his stealth technique.
The anti-Trumpites in attendance, about 80 or more, according to the Los Angeles Police Department officer in charge, agreed to cross the street and let the 50 or fewer Trump supporters wave their flags close to the entrance of the hotel.
Normally hostile ground for the likes of Trump — the liberal West Coast — was neutralized.
One of the pro-Trump demonstrators got in the face of some of the pro-immigrant folks, trying to block cameras from videotaping him, but cops stepped in quickly to quash the situation.
No arrests were reported.
Even with all that anti-undocumented fervor stirred up in his honor, Trump didn't come out and say thanks. But he did keep his date with the secretive Hollywood conservative group Friends of Abe, which organized a dinner in his honor.
Ann Coulter, whose comments about immigrants make Donald Trump look like an honorary Chicano, was said to have been in attendance.
Despite our prediction that Luxe wouldn't risk offending half the L.A. population — half its potential market and much of its workforce — by hosting a man who said Mexican immigrants are criminals and “rapists,” the venue stood by its guns and endured an army of police, TV crews and demonstrators.
Trump's remarks have made nearly every place he goes a target of pro-immigrant forces, and the likes of NBC Universal, Macy's, Univision, and more have cut business ties with him.
His L.A. campaign trip included a meeting with families whose loved ones were killed by those here illegally. He met with the family of Jamiel Shaw Jr., who was fatally shot in 2008 by a Mid-City gang member who was in the country without permission.
Vaughn Becht, 72, came from Orange County to show support for Trump outside the Luxe. He held a “stop illegal immigration” sign.
“He's the first politician who speaks the truth,” he told us. “He's putting the rest of the politicians to shame. He says it like it is.”
Trump's detractors put on a colorful protest. A man in a straw Mexican hat danced up and down Sunset Boulevard, dunking a Trump piñata into a trash can to the crowd's delight.
A Pontiac Firebird made to look like “KITT” from the TV show Knight Rider cruised up and down the boulevard with a huge American flag flown from a mast planted on its hatch.
Painted on the car were the words “Dump Trump.”
Credit: Dennis Romero/L.A. Weekly
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Credit: Dennis Romero/L.A. Weekly
Credit: Dennis Romero/L.A. Weekly
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