(Los Angeles) An American Democratic opposition senator was expelled on Thursday from a press conference of a secretary of Donald Trump in Los Angeles, while he was trying to interrupt him, an AFP photographer noted.
“I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary “in internal security Kristi Noem, he launched, before being pushed out of the room by two men then briefly handcuffed.
Kristi Noem spoke to defend the massive arrests of immigrants in an irregular situation, at the origin of a protest movement in Los Angeles and in many cities in the United States.
Photo Aude Guerrucci, Reuters
The interior security secretary, Kristi Noem
The Senator of California “was dismissed by force by federal agents, forced on the ground and handcuffed,” said Alex Padilla’s services in a statement, adding that he “is not at this moment held”.
“Senator Padilla has chosen to do disrespectful political theater and interrupted a live press conference without arising,” said Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Security.
Mr. Padilla “was said to go back and did not follow the repeated orders of the agents,” she added, assuring that the police “thought he was an attacker and acted accordingly”.
The senator and the minister then exchanged for a quarter of an hour, added Tricia McLaughlin.
The images of the senator’s arrest, a particularly prestigious position in the United States, immediately caused the indignation of Democrats, in the middle of tensions around Donald Trump’s intervention against demonstrations in Los Angeles.
This “has hints of totalitarianism,” said the chief of the Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, asking, since the Washington hemicycle, “a complete investigation” on the incident.
“It’s shocking, dictatorial and shameful,” said Gavin Newsom, the Democratic Governor of California, who asserts himself as the central figure in the opposition to Donald Trump.
