L.A. Instagram influencer arrested in connection with fatal July 4 car crash
Feb. 25 (UPI) -- A Los Angeles-based Instagram influencer has been arrested in connection with a fatal car crash from July in which authorities said she was driving drunk.
Summer Wheaton, 33, surrendered to the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station on Monday, the local sheriff's office said in a statement.
She was booked on charges of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence of alcohol causing bodily injury and driving under the influence of alcohol with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08% or above causing bodily injury.
An arrest warrant was obtained for her detention following the completion of an investigation into the July 4 crash on the 21900 block of the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.
According to a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department statement released following the crash, a preliminary investigation showed that a 2019 Mercedes-Benz, later confirmed to have been driven by Wheaton, had crossed the center median and collided head-on with a 2020 Cadillac traveling in the opposite direction.
The driver of the Cadillac, later identified as 44-year-old Martin Okeke, was killed in the crash.
The Cadillac's passenger sustained non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Wheaton has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram where she posts fashion and workout photos.
According to her website, she is a public speaker and wellness advocate as well as the founder of two startups and a nonprofit organization "dedicated to fostering self-discovery, self-empowerment and individual wellness."
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Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla handcuffed and forcibly removed from Kristi Noem's immigration press conference
Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed by what appeared to be law enforcement officials Thursday after he interrupted a Los Angeles press conference of Kristi Noem, who was discussing the Trump administration's response to the ongoing anti-ICE demonstrations. 'We are not going away,' Department of Homeland Security Secretary Noem declared. 'We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.' At that point, Padilla — who had barged into the conference room as Noem spoke — tried to address the Homeland Security chief before he was accosted by FBI agents, who then briefly restrained the California Democrat after rushing him away from the scene. 'I'm Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary. Because the fact of the matter is, a half dozen... Hands off!' the lawmaker was heard shouting as he was swarmed by law enforcement. Following his brief detainment by the FBI, the senator held a news conference and stated he was at the Wilshire Federal Building awaiting a scheduled briefing from federal officials as part of his 'responsibility as a senator to provide oversight and accountability.' He asserted that while he was waiting for a separate briefing, he learned that Noem was holding a press conference just a few doors down the hall. Adding that he and his Democratic colleagues have been attempting to get answers from DHS on their 'increasingly extreme' immigration actions, Noem had given little to no information in recent weeks, prompting him to attend her presser. 'I came to the press conference to hear what she had to say, to see if I could learn any new additional information,' he continued. 'I was there peacefully. At one point, I had a question and so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained.' While urging more 'peaceful protests' across the country against the administration's immigration enforcement actions, he wrapped up his remarks by suggesting that his incident was a warning shot. 'If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,' Padilla said. 'We will hold this administration accountable. ' Meanwhile, a Homeland Security spokesperson accused Padilla of 'lunging' at Noem without identifying himself, though video footage captures the senator saying his name and title at least twice. 'Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem,' assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Independent. 'Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers' repeated commands. U.S. Secret Service thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately,' she added. After the incident, Noem spoke with Padilla during a 15-minute meeting, according to her office. The Independent has requested additional comment from the FBI. Speaking to the press after her meeting with Padilla, Noem said she had a 'great conversation' with the senator about Homeland Security's activities and operations in Los Angeles, insisting it was 'very productive.' At the same time, though, she reiterated her office's claim that he didn't identify himself and attempted to 'lunge' at her, despite the fact that he repeatedly said his name while asking her a question. 'I'll let the law enforcement speak to how this situation was handled,' she stated. 'But I will say that people need to identify themselves before they start lunging at people during press conferences.' Based on footage that was shared on social media from reporters on the scene, after being forcefully pushed out of the conference room into an adjacent hallway, Padilla was handcuffed and restrained face down on the floor by several FBI agents. 'Senator Padilla is currently in Los Angeles exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government's operations in Los Angeles and across California. He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem's press conference,' Padilla's office said in a statement. 'He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed. He is not currently detained, and we are working to get additional information.' 'This is unacceptable, full stop,' the Congressional Hispanic Caucus added in another statement. '@SenAlexPadilla attended an open press conference to engage in debate, to represent his state, to do his job. We demand a full investigation and consequences for every official involved in this assault against a sitting US senator.' In a brief, furious statement on the Senate floor, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said footage of the incident 'sickened my stomach, adding: 'We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is currently suing the administration for federally mobilizing the National Guard in response to the protests, also immediately condemned the treatment of Padilla during the press conference. '@SenAlexPadilla is one of the most decent people I know. This is outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful,' he tweeted. 'Trump and his shock troops are out of control. This must end now.' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the incident 'absolutely abhorrent and outrageous,' noting that Padilla is a sitting United States senator. 'This administration's violent attacks on our city must end,' she added. California's other senator, Democrat Adam Schiff, reacted by saying his colleague represented 'the best of the Senate' before denouncing the actions against Padilla. 'The disgraceful and disrespectful conduct of DHS agents, pushing and shoving him out of a briefing like that, demands our condemnation,' he said. 'He will not be silenced or intimidated. His questions will be answered. I'm with Alex.' Schiff would also tell reporters on Capitol Hill that he wants an investigation into the incident, a call that was echoed by other Democratic lawmakers. 'We need to subpoena Kristi Noem!'Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) declared in a House Oversight hearing featuring several governors of sanctuary states. 'America is dying. Trump's agents just physically attacked a U.S. Senator. This is how freedom dies,' Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) stated on X. The arrest follows resistance from thousands of Americans against the Trump administration's aggressive anti-immigration agenda, with immigration raids and arrests in the Los Angeles area sparking nationwide protests against enforcement efforts ripping families and communities apart. Noem has also revoked humanitarian protections for roughly 1 million people with temporary legal status after fleeing disaster and violence in nations like Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Immigration judges have also been instructed to drop cases for hundreds of other immigrants, making potentially millions of people vulnerable to arrest and swift removal from the country. Noem has deployed masked agents to make arrests in and outside courthouses moments after those hearings end. White House policy chief Stephen Miller, the architect of the president's anti-immigration platform, has put pressure on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to arrest 3,000 people a day. He reportedly told officials last month to 'just go out there and arrest illegal aliens.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
ICE protests live updates: Sen. Alex Padilla forcibly removed from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's press conference
A U.S. senator was forcibly removed from a Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday as protests against President Trump's immigration enforcement raids continue to grow. Video shows Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, identifying himself and saying he has "questions for" Secretary Kristi Noem. He was grabbed by multiple men who pulled him from the room and into the hallway, where further video shows him being handcuffed while on the floor. Padilla's office said in a statement that the senator "tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed. He is not currently detained, and we are working to get additional information." Homeland Security said Padilla didn't identify himself and wasn't wearing a Senate security pin. "Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers' repeated commands," the agency wrote on X. "@SecretService thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately." Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been expanding across the country, and have led to hundreds of arrests. The latest tension was sparked last Friday when immigration officers raided Los Angeles businesses and arrested more than 40 immigrants. In the days since, the Trump administration has sent 700 active duty Marines to the city and has activated more than 4,000 National Guard members despite local officials saying the demonstrations have been mostly peaceful and limited to several blocks in downtown L.A., where a curfew has been imposed. Follow the live blog below for the latest updates. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that "nobody knew" the identify of U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla from California, when he "lunged toward the podium" during her Wednesday press conference in Los Angeles. "We were conducting a press conference to update everyone on the enforcement actions that are ongoing to bring peace in the city of Los Angeles, and this man burst into the room, started lunging towards the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice, and was stopped, did not identify himself, and was removed from the room,' Noem told Fox News in an interview. Padilla can be heard saying in a video of the encounter, 'I'm Sen. Alex Padilla and I have questions for the Secretary." But Noem said his attempts to identify himself were too late. Sen. Alex Padilla recounted what happened Wednesday afternoon, his voice shaky, after being forcibly removed from a press conference led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: I was here in the federal building in the conference room awaiting a scheduled briefing from federal officials as part of my responsibility as a senator, to provide oversight and accountability. ... I learned that Secretary Noem was having a press conference a couple door down the hall. Since the beginning of the year, but especially over the course of recent weeks, I [and] several of my colleagues have been asking the Department of Homeland Security for more information and more answers on their increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions, and we've gotten little to no information in response to our inquiries. I was there peacefully. ... I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room., I was forced to the ground and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained. If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country. We will hold this administration accountable. We will have more to say in the coming days. The office of Sen. Alex Padilla released a statement after the California Democrat was forcibly removed from a press conference led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. "He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed," the statement read in part. "He is not currently detained, and we are working to get additional information." Video shared with reporters by Padilla's office shows the senator being cuffed on the ground in the hallway. Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat who represents California, was forcibly removed from a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the Los Angeles FBI headquarters on Thursday. In videos shared from the press conference, Padilla yelled out that he had "questions for the secretary" but was escorted out by security. Noem, whose department oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that Padilla had not requested a meeting with her and said, 'I think everybody in America would agree that that was inappropriate." The League of United Latin American Citizens, a civil rights organization, issued a national advisory to its members and allies amid ongoing protests, CNN reported. 'LULAC stands for lawful, nonviolent protest,' said Roman Palomares, the organization's national president and chairman. 'Anyone joining a demonstration must understand that an act even perceived as assaulting National Guard soldiers or federal agents is a federal crime that can carry serious prison sentences. We should avoid reckless behavior that overshadows our just cause or endangers our people,' he added. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has deployed over 5,000 Texas National Guard troops across the state, in addition to more than 2,000 state police officers, to help local law enforcement manage anti-ICE protests, he said Thursday in a post on X. "Anyone who damages property or harms a person will be arrested," he wrote. "Don't mess with Texas." Mostly peaceful protests, captured in photos, have extended beyond Los Angeles this week into cities across the country, including Austin, Texas; San Francisco; Chicago; Seattle and New York. Read more from Yahoo News: In photos: Protesters rally against immigration raids in solidarity with Los Angeles More than 80 people were arrested from Wednesday into Thursday, mostly for failure to disperse, after a curfew took effect for a second night at 8 p.m. local time for parts of downtown Los Angeles. The LAPD broke down the arrests in a news release: Failure to disperse: 71 arrests Curfew violations: 7 arrests Assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer: 2 arrests Resisting a police officer: 1 arrest More than 30 people were arrested in downtown Spokane, Wash., on Wednesday as protesters clashed with police. Demonstrators gathered outside the ICE office to protest the detainment of a Venezuelan asylum seeker. Later Wednesday, police and the Spokane sheriff's office arrived at the scene and declared the gathering unlawful, ordering people to disperse. Police eventually sent pepper balls — which explode into smoke and contain a pepper spray-like irritant — into the crowd. A state of emergency was later declared, and Mayor Lisa Brown issued a curfew from 9:30 p.m. through 5 a.m. local time. An escalating feud between President Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom over the president's use of the military to assist in immigration raids in Los Angeles will head to the courtroom at 1:30 p.m. local time Thursday. Newsom filed an emergency motion on Tuesday to block what he calls Trump's "illegal" deployment of 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles without his consent. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer will hear Newsom's motion that would limit the activities of the troops who have been ordered to protect federal agents and assets in a small area of downtown Los Angeles where protests erupted last weekend. Two people were arrested in New York City on Wednesday night in connection with anti-ICE protests, police said. That's down from Tuesday night's 86 arrests. The scene in New York City was tense at times with demonstrators pushing and shoving police, but calmer compared to Tuesday. Demonstrations started at Foley Square, then moved down Broadway and up to the Manhattan Detention Center. Protests over immigration enforcement emerged in the city on Tuesday in solidarity with Los Angeles. The NYPD is prepared for more protests, with another expected in Foley Square on Thursday. Multiple people were arrested Wednesday night for violating a curfew that went into effect for a portion of downtown Los Angeles at 8 p.m. local time. There have been nearly 400 arrests and detentions related to the immigration enforcement protests since Saturday, according to Los Angeles police. The majority of them have been for failing to leave the area at the request of law enforcement. Meanwhile, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Wednesday that more than a dozen people have been charged with various crimes during protests in downtown L.A. over the past few days, releasing a partial list here. The charges range from assault on officers to burglary, vandalism and weapons possession. 'I fiercely support the right to peacefully protest and to free speech, but my office will also fiercely prosecute those who decide to cross a line into criminal conduct,' Hochman said. 'We will protect those who hurl insults; we will prosecute those who hurl bricks, cinderblocks or fireworks at officers. An attack on our officers or on public or private property is an attack on all of us, and such criminals will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.' The overnight curfew that was imposed in downtown Los Angeles for a second straight night was lifted at 6 a.m. local time. Police began making arrests shortly after the curfew took effect, at 8 p.m. on Wednesday night. But by 8:45, the streets appeared calm, according to the Associated Press, with no signs of Marines or National Guard members. Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar, two Democratic congressmen representing Texas, released a joint statement Wednesday condemning Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's decision to deploy the National Guard to respond to protests happening in San Antonio and Austin. "By deploying the National Guard, Governor Abbott is trying to intimidate our community for rallying against President Trump's authoritarian policies," the statement reads. "We encourage everyone to gather peacefully against President Trump's unlawful, undemocratic actions." San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg reacted to Abbott's decision earlier Wednesday at a press conference, telling reporters that city leaders hadn't requested the troops, "nor did we get advance warning." Austin Mayor Kirk Watson confirmed that his city had been notified about the National Guard coming to help local law enforcement during planned protests on Saturday. Nirenberg called the move an example of "the government's crude interpretations of immigration law and cruel approach to human rights." "Peaceful protests are part of the fabric of our nation, but Texas will not tolerate the lawlessness we have seen in Los Angeles," Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott's press secretary, told NBC's Austin affiliate KXAN. "Anyone engaging in acts of violence or damaging property will be swiftly held accountable to the full extent of the law.' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass suggested at a press conference Wednesday that the Trump administration's immigration raids could be "part of a national experiment to determine how far the federal government can go in reaching in and taking over power from a governor, power from a local jurisdiction" and the result has left "our city and our citizens, our residents, in fear." Standing alongside more than 30 mayors from L.A. County, Bass emphasized that the group represents "cities in this region where immigrants are key and, in some cases, not the majority of the population." 'When you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you're not trying to keep anyone safe; you're trying to cause fear and panic," she said. Bass said she did not agree with the media's depiction of the protests happening in response to the immigration raids. "The portrayal is that all of our cities are in chaos, rioting is happening everywhere," she said. "It is a lie." Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, head of Task Force 51 overseeing the deployment of the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, answered questions from reporters Wednesday about their orders and the rules of engagement. Sherman said their mission is to support federal agencies, in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and to protect federal agencies, personnel, assets and facilities "in the locations where there have been demonstrations lately." He said 2,000 National Guard troops are ready for missions on the ground in Los Angeles. An additional 2,000 troops are mobilizing. Sherman said some of the National Guard troops have been assigned to strictly protect ICE agents as they do their federal job. The troops' weapons are not armed with ammunition, rather the bullets are "only on their person." If confronted by protesters, Sherman said National Guard troops "do not conduct law enforcement operations, like arrests, or search and seizure. They are strictly used for the protection of federal personnel as they conduct their operations and to protect them to allow them to do their federal mission." Sherman said troops are "allowed to temporarily detain and wait for law enforcement to come and arrest them. They do not do any arrests." The 700 Marines who have been mobilized are currently undergoing civil disturbance training. Sherman couldn't give an exact date when they would be on the streets in portions of downtown L.A., but affirmed it would be "soon." When asked about the Marines's mission, Sherman said, "they will be doing the same operations." While protests against the federal deportation raids in L.A. will likely continue throughout the week, nationwide demonstrations are planned for Saturday as part of the "No Kings Day of Defiance" movement. Around 1,800 protests are planned in response to the large military parade that's scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., on Saturday in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States Army. (While there are "No Kings" protests happening in all 50 states, there is intentionally no official protest scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C.) The groups behind "No Kings" have been planning the events since early May, but the Los Angeles protests seem to have driven more people to join the "No Kings" movement. Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the groups involved, spoke with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC on Monday about how President Trump's response to protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Los Angeles caused interest in the "No Kings" website to skyrocket. 'Of those 1,800 ['No Kings' protests], more than 100 of those have been added to the map since Trump announced that he was sending the National Guard to L.A.,' Maddow told viewers. 'If [Trump] was hoping to get people to not protest, it's backfiring.' Read more from Yahoo News: Hundreds of 'No Kings' protests planned nationwide Saturday in response to Trump's military parade Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass first imposed a curfew for a small portion of downtown L.A. on Tuesday in order to prevent more violent clashes between protesters and authorities. The curfew began at 8 p.m. local time Tuesday and ended at 6 a.m. Wednesday. Bass said Wednesday that the curfews would likely continue in the coming days for as long as they are needed. Under the curfew, anyone within the designated area is subject to arrest, with limited exceptions including people who live or work there. The LAPD arrested more than 200 people in the area overnight Tuesday, and 17 were arrested for curfew violations. Most of the arrests were for failure to disperse. Bass has emphasized that the curfew zone, and the protests more broadly, do not indicate that Los Angeles is consumed by violent chaos, as President Trump and his administration have claimed. "The city of Los Angeles is a massive area, 502 square miles. The area of downtown where the curfew will take place is 1 square mile,' she said during a press conference on Tuesday. "It is extremely important to know that what is happening in this 1 square mile is not affecting the city." Over 200 people were arrested from Tuesday into Wednesday, mostly for failure to disperse after a curfew took effect at 8 p.m. local time for parts of downtown Los Angeles where immigration enforcement protests have been centered. The Los Angeles Police Department broke down the arrests in a post on X: Failure to disperse: 203 arrests Curfew violations: 17 arrests Possession of firearm: 3 arrests Assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer: 1 arrest Discharging a laser at LAPD airship: 1 arrest White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened Wednesday's press briefing by condemning the immigration protests in Los Angeles. "What we have seen transpire in Los Angeles, Calif., in recent days is shameful," Leavitt began. "Left-wing radicals waving foreign flags viciously attacked [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Border Patrol agents, as well as Los Angeles police officers. ... All because the Trump administration was removing violent criminal illegal aliens from the city." Leavitt claimed California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have not responded properly to the protests, and are "shamefully" not living up to their obligations as elected officials. "Mayor Bass and Gov. Newsom fanned the flames and demonized our brave ICE officers," she said. "In other words, the position of the Democrat Party is that the federal government is not allowed to enforce our laws into arrest and deport illegal alien criminals. They're attempting to use a violent mob as a weapon against their own constituents to prevent the enforcement of immigration law. This is deeply un-American and morally reprehensible." Cover thumbnail photo via Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Is Los Angeles really under siege? This map shows how little of the sprawling city has been affected by protests.
If you listen to President Trump and members of his administration, you'd get the impression that Los Angeles is currently a city under siege, completely overrun with violent protests against recent immigration raids. 'If I didn't 'SEND IN THE TROOPS' to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Tuesday. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described L.A. as a 'city of criminals' that needed the federal government to send in thousands of National Guard members and Marines 'to allow people to live in a safe community again.' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued that the troops were there to stop the 'rioters, looters and thugs' who were overwhelming local law enforcement. L.A.'s leaders have repeatedly insisted that the administration's rhetoric does not in any way reflect what is actually going on in their city. 'To bring in soldiers, who are trained in foreign combat, who are trained to kill, coming into our urban area — that is not even needed,' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in an interview on Wednesday. 'I have no idea what they're gonna to do. Maybe they're gonna march up and down the street because there's nothing going on that requires that.' L.A. Police Chief Jim McDonnell agrees. 'We don't need the National Guard, and they are not here to help us right now,' he told CBS News. It is true that there have been a series of protests in L.A. over the course of the past several days, some featuring scattered incidents of violence and property destruction. But life in most of the city has been largely unaffected. Los Angeles is a sprawling metropolitan area that's home to nearly 13 million people. Unlike a lot of big cities, it doesn't have one main population center. Angelenos are much more spread out than New Yorkers or Chicagoans. Most of the protests this week have taken place in a radius of just a few blocks of downtown L.A., where City Hall, LAPD headquarters and a federal detention center are clustered together. That detention center is where demonstrators gathered on Friday after several people, including a local union leader, were taken there for allegedly impeding an ICE operation elsewhere in the city earlier that day. The next morning, rumors of more ICE raids prompted hundreds of people to take to the streets in the predominantly-Latino city of Paramount, about 15 miles south of downtown. Unrest in Paramount, which spread to nearby Compton later in the day, is what first drew national attention to what's been happening in L.A. and what prompted Trump to deploy the National Guard to the city for the first time. Since then, the most disruptive protests and the most intense clashes between demonstrators and the authorities have been concentrated downtown. There have been a handful of sizable protests scattered throughout other areas of L.A. and nearby cities, including Pasadena and Santa Ana. The curfew put in effect by Bass starting on Tuesday only applies to a small area of downtown. 'The city of Los Angeles is a massive area, 502 square miles. The area of downtown where the curfew will take place is one square mile,' Bass said during a press conference on Tuesday. 'It is extremely important to know that what is happening in this one square mile is not affecting the city.' Trump and the GOP, more broadly, have been falsely portraying America's Democratic-led big cities as centers of violence and chaos for years. His rhetoric about the current situation in L.A. is a continuation of that, but it also may serve a larger purpose than simply making his political opponents — chiefly California Gov. Gavin Newsom — look bad. Newsom, Bass and other Democrats have accused the president of using overstated claims about anarchy in L.A.'s streets as a pretense to illegally seize control over American cities. 'California may be first, but it clearly will not end here,' Newsom told CNN on Tuesday. 'Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes.' Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco in Congress, described Trump's actions as 'a hallmark of authoritarianism on the road to tyranny.' McDonnell, L.A.'s police chief, said he doesn't believe that the National Guard or Marines are there to control the protests at all but are instead being co-opted into carrying out the administration's mass deportation program. 'They're working in support of the federal agencies that are working with ICE on civil immigration enforcement and criminal immigration enforcement," he told CBS News. The claims also play an important legal role. The law that the administration cited in sending National Guard troops to L.A. only allows the federal government to overstep the authority of a state's governor in three extreme instances: invasion, open rebellion or when regular forces are too overwhelmed to execute U.S. law. 'Sounds like all three to me,' Hegseth said while testifying to Congress on Tuesday.
