Masked protestor waving Mexican flag is hailed as symbol of anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles
Dramatic visuals showing a masked protester biking around a blazing car in Los Angeles have rapidly become a symbol of the anti-ICE riots in the California city.
Several images and a video show the man circling the burning vehicle while waving a Mexican flag through dark smoke clouds as the demonstrations escalated on Sunday.
Rioters seized control of the 101 Freeway through the afternoon, and violent clashes broke out between protesters against the National Guard, LAPD and immigration officials in response to President Trump's efforts to arrest illegal migrants.
Horrifying scenes of violence have stretched into a third day and sparked a political war of words between Trump and California Governor Gavin Newsom, who accused the federal administration of making matters worse with divisive rhetoric and threats.
The Los Angeles Police Department has been issuing a series of rapid fire directives as authorities seek to regain control of the rioters and contain the spread of the protests.
Extraordinary video shows the protesters as they commandeered both sides of the freeway on Sunday, grinding traffic to a complete halt as they march down the streets waving flags and holding signs high above their heads.
In nearby Alameda and Temple, arrests are now underway as officers report 'people in the crowd are throwing concrete, bottles and other objects.'
The LAPD issued an urgent dispersal order for the regions, warning 'those at Alameda and Temple must leave the area.'
Protesters gathered outside the Metropolitan Detention Center were warned that the LAPD incident commander had approved the use of 'less lethal munitions' to break up the crowd.
This came as authorities declared the area an 'unlawful assembly' and warned any protester who chose to stay would be subject to arrest.
The LAPD began issuing rolling dispersal orders and declaring some of the protests acts of 'unlawful assembly' as violence ramped up on Sunday afternoon.
Authorities issued a separate warning that the city has been placed on 'tactical alert', meaning all of the department's officers are now on notice that they could be called up for service at any given moment.
Officers who are already on duty are not allowed to end their shift until they have been relieved by their commanders, and residents of Los Angeles are warned that low priority calls may go unanswered while the alert is ongoing.
These officers will now join the 2,000 California National Guard troops Trump earlier deployed to Los Angeles to quell the protests, which he called 'a form of rebellion.'
Trump issued an extraordinary directive on Sunday vowing to 'liberate Los Angeles' from illegal aliens which have 'invaded and occupied a once great American city.'
A combined effort led by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Attorney General Pam Bondi will restore order, Trump said.
He has directed his key personnel to 'to take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.
'Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday afternoon.
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The Guardian
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25 minutes ago
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The riot-ravaged Downtown area will be a no-go zone from 8pm to 6am on Tuesday and will continue indefinitely after violent demonstrators set fire to cars, looted buildings and attacked officers with rocks, fireworks and cement bricks in harrowing scenes of destruction. LAPD squads in riot gear began storming the streets immediately surrounding the Federal Building on Los Angeles St. in downtown Los Angeles shortly after Mayor Karen Bass's 8pm curfew went into effect. Police cars blocked off streets and uniformed officers fast marched to the location. Agitators were forced back half a block from the location but still swarmed the area. The intense tactical operation continued as officers, including mounted police, created so-called skirmish lines to push rioters away from other federal buildings on the same block. witnessed cars with their lights off pulling up a block away. Four agitators wearing matching black hoodies and face masks piled out of each vehicle and began moving towards the lines of police. Despite the curfew order having been called, some protestors - waving flags and yelling - defiantly stared down police who watched on and stood their ground rather than make arrests. One protestor, a man aged in his early 20s with a Mexican flag draped over his shoulders, told Daily Mail: 'I know my own rights and am willing to be arrested unjustly. I have a right to be here and protest.' People began chanting and cheering as motorcyclist performed donuts and burnouts in front of officers. White LAPD buses arrived on scene at 8:50pm as officers made plans to make arrests. A tipping point was reached at 9:05pm as police began making arrests outside the Federal Building. About a dozen people were arrested by cops and made to face a wall with their hands behind their backs and tied with zip ties before being marched on a white LAPD bus. Bizarrely, public buses still operated two blocks away from the dramatic scene. Bass said the curfew is expected to last several days and will encompass a square mile radius around the epicenter of the violence in Downtown LA. 'If you do not live or work in downtown LA avoid the area. Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew, and you will be prosecuted,' Bass said. For five days now, rioters have wreaked havoc on communities as they railed against Trump 's efforts to rid the city of illegal migrants. They were only further enraged when Trump gave orders to send 700 Marines and 4,100 National Guard troops in to take over policing efforts and assist the LAPD. Bass revealed at least 23 businesses have been looted during the ongoing violence and condemned some of the horrifying images which have emerged from the days of carnage. But Bass said the curfew was contained to where the violence was most apparent, noting: 'Some of the imagery of the protests and the violence gives the appearance as though this is a city wide crisis and is not.' She hopes that by imposing a curfew and declaring a local emergency, she can 'stop the vandalism, stop the looting.' 'A curfew has been in consideration for several days, but clearly after the violence that took place last night and just the extensive widespread nature of the vandalism, we reached a tipping point.' While Bass refrained from locking down the entire Downtown, the LAPD has this week repeatedly issued alerts listing Downtown Los Angeles as 'unlawful assembly' zones in an effort to rid the area of any and all protesters. The regions impacted by the lockdown span from the five freeway to the 110 freeway, and from the 10 freeway to the point where the 110 and the five merge. The development comes as Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop the LA rioters, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. 'If there's an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We'll see. But I can tell you, last night was terrible. The night before that was terrible,' Trump said. He repeatedly referred to 'bad, sick people' and 'agitators' he said were paid to wreak havoc. 'There are certainly areas of Los Angeles you could have called it an insurrection,' Trump said. It was terrible.' A curfew is the natural next step in efforts toward regaining control of the city, as the LAPD ramps up arrests and cracks down on protesters breaching unlawful assembly orders. Hordes of protesters were zip-tied and forced onto LAPD buses en masse as authorities sought to bring an end to days of chaos and destruction. LAPD chief Jim McDonnell said protests had grown more violent as the week progressed. There were just 27 arrests on Sunday, with 40 on Sunday, 114 on Monday and nearly 200 by 6pm on Tuesday. He said public safety personnel, journalists and homeless people would be exempt from the order. The arrival of Trump's military reinforcements brought its own set of challenges on Tuesday, with furious Governor Newsom filing an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. 'I just filed an emergency motion to block Trump's illegal deployment of Marines and National Guard in Los Angeles,' he said on X. 'Trump is turning the U.S. military against American citizens. The courts must immediately block these illegal actions.' The state said the order would 'prevent the use of federalized National Guard and active duty Marines for law enforcement purposes on the streets of a civilian city.' 'Federal antagonization, through the presence of soldiers in the streets, has already caused real and irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles, the people who live there, and the State of California,' the filing stated. 'They must be stopped, immediately.' A judge denied the motion and instead granted the Trump administration an extension of time to respond to Newsom's filing. The federal government now has until 2pm on Wednesday to file its response. Newsom will then have an opportunity to file its opposition ahead of a hearing at 1.30pm Thursday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles will cost at least $134 million and last 60 days. 'We stated very publicly that it's 60 days because we want to ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we're not going anywhere,' he said. 'Thankfully, unlike the previous administration, we've got a 13 percent increase in our defense budget, and we will have the capability to cover down on contingencies, which is something the National Guard and the Marines plan for. 'So we have the funding to cover down on contingencies, especially ones as important as maintaining law and order in a major American city. As far as training, all of the units on the ground have been fully trained in their capabilities of what they're executing on the ground.'
