Portland Climate-Action Leader Arrested Outside Veep Kamala Harris' Los Angeles Home

Adah Crandall, a Portland climate activist, and five of her colleagues in the Sunrise Movement were arrested today after they blocked the street in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’ Los Angeles home.

Sunrise Movement wants President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency, part of taking more decisive action to combat global warming.

Crandall, 18, graduated from Grant High School in 2023 and is spending a year before college working full time on the Sunrise Movement, which organizes young people to fight against climate change.

The Los Angeles Times reports that about 40 Sunrise Movement activists gathered at Harris’ home in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood on April 14. Some camped outside the house overnight. Midmorning on April 15, Los Angeles police moved in to arrest six of the protesters, who were sitting in the street outside Harris’ home.

When she ran for president in 2020, then U.S.-Sen. Harris (D-Calif.) ran on an environmental platform, extolling visions of a “Green New Deal.” But Sunrise Movement activists are unsatisfied with the Biden administration’s climate stance. Outside Harris’ home, according to the Times, they chanted “Harris, Harris, you can’t see this is an emergency...fossil fuels are killing me...this will be your legacy.”

Harris was reportedly home in Brentwood yesterday and left this morning for a speech in Las Vegas without speaking to the protesters.

Crandall, who has regularly protested against proposed freeway projects in Oregon, arguing more capacity will bring more vehicle emissions, said in a statement that the vice president must do more to protect the planet.

“My generation is spending our teenage years organizing for climate action because people like Kamala Harris have failed us,” Crandall said. “We’re ready to do whatever it takes to win a climate emergency declaration—we will camp out overnight, we will get arrested, we will mobilize our peers by the thousands to win the world we deserve. The Biden administration are cowards for not standing with young people.”

The six people arrested face misdemeanor charges of failing to disperse.