183 arrested overnight in downtown LA street protests*

* Updated after LAPD Chief Charlie Beck's morning press conference

The numbers were bigger than they looked on the live streams, which I followed last night for Twitter and a little bit here. Police arrested 183 people in multiple downtown locations, most of them on suspicion of disorderly conduct, but 15 also were curfew violations by juveniles. These were the groups that peeled off from a demonstration in front of the Police Administration Building that never got very large or raucous, maybe a few hundred by the looks of it, many of whom had walked to downtown from South LA. Once at the LAPD headquarters they faced off with police at barricades and chanted slogans about the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. A small number of objects were thrown at police. One officer was hurt when hit by a bottle of ice. One of the arrests was for felony assault on a police officer.

The smaller groups that split off walked through Downtown LA streets for several hours. Some invaded the 101 freeway at Grand Avenue and blocked traffic or threw objects onto the freeway from the bridge above, but most of the roaming protesters stayed peaceful. They were, however, blocking streets as they walked and occasionally would pick up barricades or surround passing cars. This went in for a few hours before LAPD officers gave dispersal orders, then surrounded the groups and made arrests. Most of those arrested were at Temple and Broadway in the Civic Center or at 9th and Flower streets near LA Live. Moving lines of police had earlier prevented protesters from entering the shopping area, and the roaming group then blocked the Metro line tracks at Flower and 12th Street.

Beck said this morning that the roaming groups that stayed out late were engaging in increasingly disruptive civil disobedience and were given several warnings before arrests began.

Also: A handful of people were quickly arrested this morning after invading the Hollywood Freeway at Alvarado Street and blocking traffic. Beck said that anyone going into freeways will now be dealt with quickly.