Yahoo Sports L.A. Sheriff’s Deputies Arrested a Trans Activist for ‘Robbery.’ Video Tells a Completely Different Story
Even onlookers seemed to struggle processing the scene unfolding in front of them. It was the first day of West Hollywood’s Pride celebration, and eight Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputies were wrestling two LGBTQ activists to the ground.
“At Pride, oh my god!” exclaims one bystander in a now-viral clip on Twitter that has received more than four million views.
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Just moments before the arrest, the two activists filmed on the asphalt — Xodiak Rose, a regular Los Angeles activist who uses all pronouns, and their friend, Abby Thomas — were volunteering at the booth of the nonprofit Equal Means Equal. “Suddenly, [Rose] gets tackled from behind by five cops that we didn’t see coming,” Thomas says.
Deputies brought Thomas down soon after for allegedly interfering with Rose’s arrest, though witnesses disputed the charge.
Hours later, with videos of the arrest picking up momentum online and community members and activists demanding answers over the Pride arrests, the Sheriff’s Department released a statement, saying Rose had an outstanding warrant for vandalism, battery, and felony robbery of a cell phone. That warrant stemmed from an April 15 incident at a Drag Story Hour event at the West Hollywood public library, in which Story Hour defenders attacked a far-right activist attempting to film the event. (Thomas was charged with misdemeanor obstruction of an arrest.)
But footage taken by this reporter suggests Rose had little, if anything, to do with the April 15 attack — and that the “stolen” phone was almost immediately back in Rodriguez’s possession.
Indeed, after reviewing the evidence submitted by the Sheriff’s Department, the District Attorney’s Office declined to pursue the most serious charges against Rose, leaving only misdemeanor vandalism, a spokesperson told Rolling Stone. But questions remain about the Sheriff Department’s actions in the case.
The arrest follows intense right-wing backlash against the Sheriff’s Department over its handling of the conflict between a trans-activist and a right-wing protester, with online conservatives criticizing deputies for failing to protect the protester or apprehend his assailants.
But in light of the video contradicting the Sheriff Department’s account of events and the DA declining to charge Rose with any of the most serious crimes, the timing and the highly public spectacle of Rose’s arrest raise questions about the impartiality of the department’s charging decisions. At the very least, LGBTQ community members say it renews concerns about the role of law enforcement in protecting them at a time of heightened threats to their safety.
WHAT BEGAN AS A SMALL scuffle in April in West Hollywood has since blossomed into a national controversy — albeit an extremely online one.
On April 15, dozens of activists rallied in front of the library to counter a planned protest of the event—a protest that mostly failed to materialize, turning out around four Drag Story Hour opponents, including one whose “Leave Kids Alone” sign in rainbow lettering left onlookers confused about the sign-maker’s ideological affiliation and exactly who he wanted leaving the kids alone.
Jairo Rodriguez, a far-right activist with a history of filming LGBTQ events, arrived with phone in hand and made a beeline for the library doors. A crowd of counter-protesters, many wearing masks and holding umbrellas to obstruct cameras, marshaled to prevent Rodriguez from entering, based on film captured by this reporter. Rose, for their part, began to dance in front of Rodriguez.
In the midst of this display, and with Sheriff’s deputies watching nearby, an activist in a beige coat with their face covered ran up behind Rodriguez and tried grabbing his phone and gimbal (a device used to stabilize a camera during filming). A struggle ensued and Rodriguez’s phone fell to the ground as three activists wrestled with him.
Footage of the attack on Rodriguez, in which the activist in the beige coat punches him in the head mere feet in front of a Sheriff’s deputy, made its way onto the Twitter feed of rightwing provocateur Andy Ngo. In the video, the deputy who witnesses the assault points a finger at the assailant and fecklessly shouts “Stop fighting!”
Ngo’s tweet took clear aim at the department.
“@LASDHQ deputies watch and do nothing as far-left extremists in support of a children’s drag queen event in West Hollywood assault a young man,” he posted.
The clip has been viewed more than two million times and led to a deluge of criticism of the department from a traditionally back-the-blue constituency.
Here’s how the Sheriff’s Department describes Rose’s role in the scuffle: “On Wednesday, April 19, 2023, a robbery occurred at the West Hollywood library,” the Sheriff’s Department’s short statement reads, misstating the April 15 event’s date. “The suspect stole the victim’s cell phone.”
But the video tells a different story. In the footage, which covers the whole of the encounter, Rose was outside of the scrum and did not make contact with Rodriguez. The video shows Rose repeatedly stomping on Rodriguez’s phone, but it also shows Rodriguez regaining possession of the phone seconds seconds later — apparently contradicting the Sheriff’s claims of robbery.
Rose’s stomping of the phone does not appear to have broken it. Rodriguez can be seen using the phone immediately after the attack in the video, and he uploaded footage to his social media channels afterwards.
Rodriguez declined to comment on the disparity between the footage of events and the charges that resulted from his report to police. He also declined to comment on the other two charges.
When asked about the specific evidence behind the robbery charge, an operations lieutenant for the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station told Rolling Stone that “a police report was taken.” After hearing a description of the video of the incident, the operations lieutenant responded, “That’d be some useful information that I could forward to one of our detective sergeants.”
Rose’s arrest was greeted with exuberance, garnering coverage by the rightwing publication The Post Millennial within a day and subsequent tweets by rightwing personalities like James Linsdsay and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec.
Ngo continued to weigh in on the story, tweeting a screenshot of a viral post in support of Rose and tagging Twitter CEO Elon Musk. “Another example below of thousands of retweets in the service of spreading & raising money off disinfo, @elonmusk,” Ngo wrote, adding that Rose “was arrested because of a warrant for felony robbery & battery that occurred at a library.”
None, however, were more pleased by the arrest than Rodriguez, who posted to his Telegram channel immediately following the arrest, “I’m so happy right now and relieved that he will finally meet #justice for what he did to me.”
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