Proving once again that periods of stupidity do not end with a calendar year, a group of racist, pro-Trump bullies invaded a Los Angeles mall over the weekend, sewing violence in their wake.
Video of the incident circulated on Twitter on Sunday (Jan. 3) evening, courtesy of journalist Samuel Braslow. The footage shows a group of about 20 people wandering the Westfield Mall in Century City, terrorizing employees of the stores and customers alike.
In one instance, a violent confrontation broke out in a Gelson’s grocery store between a shopper and an unmasked woman, who claimed that the man hit her. Cameras did not capture the initial incident, though they did record the woman trying to run down the man with a shopping cart, and another anti-mask hoodlum kicking the man as he tried to check out and exit the store.
A violent altercation broke out between a protester and a customer. Didn’t see see the inciting incident. She claims that the customer hit her; in response, she tries to ram him with a shopping cart and shout at him. pic.twitter.com/nR3whF8ImC
— Samuel Braslow (@SamBraslow) January 4, 2021
At the same time, two maskless women began shouting racially charged statements around the store, including “All Lives Matter” and slander against China. Another man referred to mask-wearing employees and customers as “mask Nazis.”
A lot of shouting matches like this, where a shopper tells two protesters to leave and they say that this isn’t Communist China. pic.twitter.com/3a22QBJXKf
— Samuel Braslow (@SamBraslow) January 4, 2021
Related: NYC Repubs celebrate Christmas with maskless conga line
The rioters then progressed to other stores in the mall, including Bloomingdales, Steve Madden and the food court, harassing customers and chanting “no more masks.” The group also performed an acapella dance rendition of The Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” (changing lyrics to M-A-G-A) presumably because Donald Trump played the song–without irony–at campaign rallies.
The anti maskers have a little dance party on the floor of @Bloomingdales, dancing to the MAGA version of YMCA. pic.twitter.com/3qEBPYrHvv
— Samuel Braslow (@SamBraslow) January 4, 2021
Police eventually arrived on the scene but did not arrest the rioters. Instead, they stood back and watched as the group continued to disobey mask mandates and harass other customers. That includes a moment where officers watched a mall shopper, a doctor, tell one of the maskless thugs that her mother is in the hospital dying of COVID-19. The man’s response: “People die. Your father’s not special.”
A woman who said she’s a doctor yells at the anti-maskers that her mother is in the hospital with COVID. A protester responds, “People die. Your father’s not special.” pic.twitter.com/9aWkuR0Lyw
— Samuel Braslow (@SamBraslow) January 4, 2021
At the time of this writing, no charges have been pressed against any of the rioters despite their physical and verbal harassment of shoppers on private property. The incident is just the latest in an ongoing series of disruptions by Trump supporters who continue to deny the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Los Angeles, where the riot occurred, statistics report almost 36,000 new cases the same day of the incident.
Queerty