William Gallagher
Rioters have run through Apple Tower Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, smashing windows and stealing iPhones, during protests over immigration raids.
Apple Tower Theatre is an historic Los Angeles building that was formerly a theatre, abandoned in the 1980s. Apple turned it into an Apple Store in 2021, preserving its architecture and also making it a classical music venue.
According to local news station KTLA, a fourth night of anti-ICE protests on June 10, 2025, included rioters breaking into the Apple Store. Reportedly, iPhones, Apple Watches, MacBook Pro, and chargers were stolen, while "No ICE" and other slogans were spray-painted onto the damaged glass.
Apple store in downtown LA being looted tonight
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene)
Footage shot by Twitter user Brendan Gutenschwager shows very many looters running through the store, before police sires can be heard. Subsequently, Gutenschwager has also reported that are now displaying an on-screen message. Please return to Apple Tower Theatre," it says. "This device has been disabled and is being tracked. Local authorities will be alerted.
The protests have ranged across downtown LA, with many other stores also being looted. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass says the protests are because of the Trump administration increasing its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
"I will just take you back to last Thursday," Mayor Bass told KTLA. "Last Thursday, there was nothing happening in this town that called for the raids that took place on Friday. Nothing was happening. Nothing warranted the raids."
"If you remember, at the beginning of this administration, we were told that raids would be to look for violent criminals, people who had warrants," continued Mayor Bass. "But I don't know how you go from a drug dealer to a Home Depot. To people's workplaces, where they're just trying to make a living."
According to ABC 糖心Vlog, the after ICE agents carried out immigration sweeps on June 6, including chasing people across a Home Depot car park. On June 7, Trump ordered 2,000 members of the National Guard into the city, later describing the protests as being like "a foreign invasion."
On June 9, LAPD declared all protests to be "unlawful assembly," while 700 members of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines at Twentynine Palms, California, were also being deployed to Los Angeles. By June 10, the number of deployed National Guard members has been increased to over 4,000.
Apple has not commented on the damage to its store, which has now been boarded up while windows are replaced.
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Charles Martin
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
Christine McKee
20 Comments
Those stolen iPhones are disable, tracked and useless. They are probably going to sell them to China for parts.
It infuriates me when opportunists engage in criminal acts at times like this. No matter what the underlying protests are about, events like this negatively impact the perception of those protests. In this case, you know for a dead certainty that this will be used to justify sending in the Marines and the National Guard.
The Bulwark commented that he is doing this in a blue state where the population isn’t overly concerned with migrants but he is not doing it in any red states where his supporters who whine about migrants are concentrated. Probably because he knows this is disruptive to the local economy.