Top law enforcement officials in Long Beach said Thursday they will not pursue criminal or financial penalties against two people arrested for allegedly exceeding legal noise limits during an anti-ICE protest in June.
The city prosecutor’s office confirmed Thursday that it tossed the cases, saying it had insufficient evidence as to who was making loud noises that night, and had no way to prove protestors violated any rules. The office relayed its decision to the protestors’ attorney on Thursday.
This decision comes more than five months after two women, Carmen Valdes and Maha Afra, were arrested by Long Beach police officers during an anti-ICE demonstration outside the Holiday Inn on Lakewood Boulevard on June 25.
Protestors, ranging in small groups of 15 to 40 people at a time, periodically gathered outside the hotel to protest federal immigration agents believed to be renting rooms there.
Protestors maintain that dozens of immigration officers have stayed at the hotel, while city officials have said otherwise. The Long Beach Post was not able to independently verify either of these claims.
Afra, a college professor, said it was her first time attending the “No Sleep for ICE” protest.
Arriving at 8 p.m., Afra said she used a bullhorn once but quit making excessive noise after police asked her to stop. Periodically, she said, officers came up to the group, first asking them to stop using bullhorns, cowbells and other noisemakers, then coming back to say all noise must cease.
Despite “fully complying,” Afra said she and another protestor were arrested, recalling that police said she violated a noise ordinance and that someone outside the hotel pointed her out as a culprit.
“We followed the orders of your officers,” Afra recalls telling police, adding that one officer later said he had previously warned her to leave. “And I say, ‘You never told us to leave. There were never orders to leave.’”
Nearly one month after her arrest, Afra said she and others went before the Long Beach City Council to ask that they intercede in the case. She said she never received a reply.
Afra, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1985, said the experience has left her with mixed feelings about the city she has called home since 2009.
“Did they do it because they were doing the right thing, or just kicking it under the rug?” she said of the decision to forgo charges. “We were exercising the minimum of what we are allowed to do.”
Local attorney Marc Coleman, who handled their cases, said in a statement Thursday their arrests “should never have happened in the first place.”
“We are considering our options for wrongful arrest since there appear to be no lawful basis for the arrests,” he added.
If charges had been filed, typical fines for noise tickets range $250 to $400, depending on whether it’s an infraction or misdemeanor.
The city has a decibel limit that depends on the area’s building zone, time of day and distance to a property. Only the city’s Health Department — not police — carries the equipment to accurately measure decibel levels, according to a city official familiar with the situation.