Protesters hurling rocks, bottles and eggs at the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Station retreated up Union Avenue
Tuesday night from black-clad riot police who fired rubber bullets and non-lethal bean bags, two days after a fatal officer-involved shooting on West Sixth Street.

Twenty-two people were arrested by 11:20 p.m., LAPD Officer Karen Rayner said. No civilian or officer injuries were reported, but one Univision reporter sustained a neck bruise from a slingshot projectile, Mary Grady of LAPD Media Relations said.

Earlier Tuesday, Police Chief Charlie Beck said officers involved in the fatal shooting Sunday of a knife-wielding man near MacArthur Park were defending themselves against an aggressive suspect who had already threatened other people in the neighborhood and refused to obey officers' orders.

However, protesters in the immigrant Westlake neighborhood a few blocks east of MacArthur Park decided to confront police for a second day in a row.Somebody outside Rampart Station tore down a police sign and objects were thrown at the station windows. About 300 people blocked Union Avenue and Sixth Street earlier tonight, and police declared an unlawful assembly about
9:30 p.m., Grady said.

A similar scene played out Monday, with more than a hundred people marching along West Sixth between the Rampart Station and Alvarado Street. Police and news video cameramen said tonight was more hectic than Monday night.

On Monday a running melee erupted when some agitators tossed rocks, bottles and eggs at some traffic control officers on West Sixth Street, and some people dumped garbage and lit fires on side streets, including Union, Burlington Avenue and Bonnie Brae Street.

Beck's comments came at Tuesday morning's Police Commission meeting and he punctuated them later at a 6 p.m. news conference at police headquarters, saying "as this investigation progresses, I am sure we will uncover other facts.

"As a matter of fact, one of the purposes of this press conference is to ask people who may have seen anything that happened at Sixth and Union to come forward,'' Beck said.

Nodding to the anti-police sentiment swirling in the neighborhood throughout the day, Beck said that if witnesses in the neighborhood with a high number of immigrants from Guatemala and other Central American nations did not
want to contact the police department directly, they could contact their homeland's consulate.

Beck said he and other department officials would be at a community meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at John Leichty Middle School at 650 S. Union Ave.

"We will try to make the community feel comfortable in the transparency of this investigation,'' Beck said.

Nodding to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Beck noted that as Villaraigosa stated, "it's a tragedy.''

However, Beck insisted, "we have absolute faith in the process.''

The shooting Sunday occurred at the same intersection where a vigil and protests began Monday. Manuel Jamines, a 37-year-old Guatemalan construction worker and father of three, was shot to death by police around 1 p.m. Sunday in front of a business at Sixth and Union. Police said he was drunk and threatening passersby near Sixth Street and Union Avenue.

Beck told the Police Commission a resident flagged down three bicycle officers from the Rampart Division -- Frank Hernandez, Steven Rodriguez and Paris Pineda -- to report a man with a knife who was threatening people. He
said the officers found the man and confronted him.

"He was ordered several times in English and Spanish to drop the knife, and failed to comply,'' Beck said.

"The suspect then raised the knife over his head and advanced on officers, at which time an officer-involved shooting occurred. The suspect fell to the ground where he was taken into custody without further incident and a knife was recovered at the scene.''

Jamines was pronounced dead at the scene.

On Sunday, area resident Kelly Flor, who identified herself as a community activist, told NBC4 that Jamines ``could not speak English, so he could not understand what the officer was saying, and after that the officer
proceeded in shooting him twice in the head.''

LAPD Lt. Andrew Neiman said there was already friction between neighborhood residents and Rampart Station officers, who have been cracking down on "illegal street vending.''

Residents in the neighborhood include recent immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico.