Los Angeles police responded Sunday after a U-Haul box truck was driven down a street crowded with marchers demonstrating in support of the Iranian people, causing protesters to scramble out of the way and then run after the speeding vehicle to try to attack the driver, according to police statements reported by The Associated Press.
Police said the driver was taken into custody and could face charges, and that the driver, a man, was not identified. In a statement Sunday evening, police said the driver was detained “pending further investigation.”
The police statement said one person was hit by the truck but nobody was seriously hurt. The Los Angeles Fire Department said two people were evaluated by paramedics and both declined treatment.
ABC7 news helicopter footage showed officers keeping the crowd at bay as demonstrators swarmed the truck, the report said. The footage showed demonstrators throwing punches at the driver and thrusting flagpoles through the driver’s side window, and the truck’s window and side mirrors were shattered.
Police said the truck was stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars. The report said protesters then converged on the vehicle.
A banner attached to the truck displayed the words: “No Shah. No Regime. USA: Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah.” The Associated Press reported that the banner appeared to reference a U.S.-backed coup in 1953 that toppled then-Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
The report said the 1953 coup stemmed from U.S. fears over the Soviet Union increasingly seeking a role in Iran as Communists agitated within the country. It also said the groundwork was laid in part by the British, who wanted to wrest back access to Iran’s oil industry, which had been nationalized earlier by Mossadegh.
The Associated Press said the coup toppled Mossadegh and cemented the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and that it “lit the fuse” for the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The report said the fatally ill shah fled Iran and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ushered in the theocracy that still governs Iran.
In Los Angeles, demonstrators gathered Sunday afternoon along Veteran Avenue in the Westwood neighborhood to protest Iran’s theocracy, the report said. Police eventually issued a dispersal order, and by 5 p.m. only about a hundred protesters were still in the area, ABC7 reported.
Activists say a crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran has killed more than 530 people. The Associated Press reported that protesters flooded the streets in Tehran and Iran’s second-largest city again Sunday.
Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran, the report said.