200 Rally Against Jail Expansion Plan
About 200 demonstrators from four communities near downtown Los Angeles converged on the Men’s Central Jail on Monday evening to protest a proposed expansion at the facility.
“The county hasn’t taken an objective look at the appropriateness of expansion at this location, because it was assumed there would be little opposition from the surrounding immigrant communities,” City Councilman Michael Woo said.
Residents and merchants from Chinatown, Olvera Street, Lincoln Heights, and Little Tokyo displayed signs and shouted slogans as they marched from their neighborhoods to the jail on Bauchet Street, where the county has proposed adding 2,408 beds, bringing the capacity to 9,000 inmates.
Woo, fellow Councilman Richard Alatorre and state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) joined the protesters during the march and at a rally in the jail’s parking lot, where they demanded that county supervisors scrap the preliminary environmental impact on the expansion and schedule new public hearings.
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