Police issue assembly ban for downtown LA after third day of demos
Authorities have declared the entire downtown Los Angeles area an "unlawful assembly" zone after a third consecutive day of clashes between protesters and law enforcement, sparked by the crackdown on immigration ordered by US President Donald Trump.
"You are to leave the area immediately," the Los Angeles police department (LAPD) wrote on X in the early hours of Monday.
Over the weekend, 56 people were arrested in connection with the ongoing protests, according to police reports.
Police chief Jim McDonnell was quoted by US media as announcing that "the number of arrests so far is nothing compared to what is yet to come."
On Sunday, tensions spiked dramatically following Trump's order to deploy the National Guard and, controversially, mobilize regular military forces - despite opposition from local officials.
Thousands of protesters flooded the streets in response to the unprecedented deployment. Law enforcement responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs in an effort to disperse the crowds.
However, the rest of the sprawling metropolis continued to function largely as normal, aside from isolated pockets of unrest in the downtown area.
An expert cited by The New York Times said this is the first time in 60 years that a president has deployed a state's National Guard without the governor's consent.
The last instance was in 1965, when president Lyndon B Johnson used troops to protect predominantly Black demonstrators during the civil rights movement in Alabama
The protests began on Friday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers executed search warrants across the city as Trump pushed forward with his goal of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has accused the Trump administration of deliberately provoking the escalation and acting unlawfully in an effort to portray the president as a strongman leader.
The Democratic governor - considered a potential contender for the 2028 presidential race - announced that the state would file a lawsuit against the federal government.
Protests also in San Francisco
Protests against the deportation of migrants without residence permits also led to riots in San Francisco.
Around 60 people were detained after an initially peaceful demonstration in front of a building belonging to ICE, local station KGO reported.
According to the report, hundreds of people protested on Sunday evening against the raids and deportations of migrants without valid residence permits currently taking place in the state of California.
The mood turned sour when some demonstrators destroyed property, carried out attacks and caused other damage, according to police, the station reported.
In order to break up the demonstration, the authorities declared the protests an "unlawful assembly."
Some people nevertheless remained and later damaged buildings and a police car in other streets. Another group refused to disperse. This led to the arrests. According to the report, two officers were injured. A firearm was also seized.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
17 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Trump's former Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, says the US-China deal is still far from comprehensive
President Donald Trump's former Secretary of Commerce doesn't think the trade deal between the US and China is close to being "done." "It looks as though they made a fairly modest deal, mostly focusing on export controls on both the US side and the China side," Wilbur Ross, who was part of the first Trump administration, told Business Insider. "So it's far from a comprehensive deal." On Wednesday morning, Trump said on Truth Social that the deal with China is now "done." "It seems more or less to be reiterating the deal they thought they had set a few weeks ago," Ross said of the deal. China and the US reached a trade framework agreement on Tuesday, after their respective negotiation teams held two-day talks in London. The current Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, is part of the US trade talk team. "Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China," Trump added in all caps in the post. "Likewise, we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities (which has always been good with me!)." Ross said that the deal has not addressed many important issues, including intellectual property, so it may be too soon to call this a victory. "The Chinese side has been very careful to say it still needs to be approved by President Xi," said Ross. "When we negotiated with the China side last time, it wasn't unusual for the trade negotiators to agree to something, and then they would go back to Xi, and he would not go along with it." This year in duties on imports from China reached up to 245% on some goods. On May 14, many of the tariffs on China were reduced to 30% for 90 days, with a deadline of August 12. A 10% baseline tariff is still in place on the rest of the world, while additional higher tariffs on 75 countries have been paused until July 9. Ross said that it would be important to complete at least a few deals with key trading partners before the tariff pause on 75 countries expires. "I think that will help clear the air for the stock market because it'll start to show a direction and that there is a way to get all these things resolved," he said. "It's very important from a bond market point of view and from an equity market point of view."
Associated Press
17 minutes ago
- Associated Press
AP PHOTOS: Bruce Springsteen's Berlin concert
BERLIN (AP) — American rock star Bruce Springsteen, long a political opponent of President Donald Trump, performed before tens of thousands fans at a Berlin stadium where he denounced the U.S. administration as 'corrupt, incompetent and treasonous'. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
Los Angeles Times
19 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. law enforcement's treatment of journalists during protests is once again under scrutiny
Abraham Márquez, a reporter with the nonprofit investigative news startup Southlander, was filming a tense standoff between Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and immigrant rights protesters in Paramount on Saturday night when he saw a deputy aim a 'less-lethal' launcher in his direction. Sensing a confrontation, Márquez said, he raised his press credential and 'kept yelling press, press, press,' even as he turned and began running in the opposite direction. He barely made it a few feet before he felt a stinging pain as first one foam round, then another slammed into his buttocks and his back. 'They just unloaded,' he said of the deputies. He was nearly struck again a short time later, when deputies riding by in an armored vehicle sprayed foam rounds into a gas station parking lot where Márquez and a KTLA-TV news crew had sought cover, he said. He was shaken, but said that he felt compelled to keep reporting. 'I got hit and what not but I'm glad I was there to document it,' he said. The incident was one of dozens in which journalists have been shot with less-lethal police rounds, tear-gassed, shoved and detained while chronicling the ongoing civil unrest and military intervention in the nation's second largest city, according to interviews and video footage reviewed by The Times. The police actions have drawn angry condemnation from public officials and 1st Amendment advocates. There have been multiple reported instances of reporters of not only being struck by projectiles, but also having their bags searched, being threatened with arrest, and getting blocked from areas where they had a right under state law to observe police activity. Among those hit by police projectiles were several Times reporters in the course of covering protests in downtown L.A. over the past few days. The LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff's Department have faced criticism and lawsuits over their treatment of news media during past crises, but some covering the recent events say the situation has only gotten worse with the inflammatory anti-media messaging coming from the Trump White House. 'The price for free speech should not be this high,' said Arturo Carmona, president and publisher of Caló News, a news site that covers issues that matter to English-speaking Latinos. 'Several of our reporters, several of whom are women of color, have been harassed and attacked by law enforcement.' In one high-profile case, a CNN reporter was briefly detained by officers while doing a live-on air segment. In another, Australian TV news reporter Lauren Tomasi was shot in the leg by a less-lethal round by an riot gear-clad officer moments after she wrapped up a live on-air segment. The incident became an international affair, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Albanese calling it 'horrific.' L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said it 'sends a terrible message,' and several city councilmembers referenced it while grilling LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell on Tuesday about his department's response to the protests. In a statement, the Sheriff's Department said it was reviewing video footage from several incidents involving the news media to determine whether any of its deputies were involved. The department said it is 'committed to maintaining an open and transparent relationship with the media and ensuring that journalists can safely perform their duties, especially during protests, acts of civil disobedience, and public gatherings.' 'Our goal is to support press freedom while upholding public safety and operational integrity,' the statement said. LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas said that two of the roughly 15 complaints the department was investigating as of Tuesday involved possible mistreatment of journalists — a number that is expected to grow in the coming days and weeks Rimkunas said the department decided to launch an investigation of the Tomasi incident on its own, but has since been in contact with the Australian consulate. A coalition of 27 press and civil liberties advocacy groups wrote to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday 'to express alarm that federal officers may have violated the First Amendment rights of journalists covering recent protests and unrest related to immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area.' Multiple journalists who covered the protests told The Times that officers and deputies used physical force or the threat of arrest to remove them from areas where they have a right to be. In doing so, the journalists said, police were ignoring protections established by state law for journalists covering protests, as well as their own departments' policies adopted after mass protests after George Floyd's murder in 2020 and over the clearance of a homeless encampment in Echo Park in 2021. On Saturday, journalist Ben Camacho was documenting the scene in Paramount, where images of people vandalizing and burning cars dominated the nightly newscasts. Wearing his press pass and with a camera hanging around his neck, he watched in shock as law enforcement opened fire on the crowd with less-lethal munitions, striking Nick Stern, a British news photographer, who crumbled to the ground in front of him. After helping carry Stern to safety, Camacho said he too was struck by a round in the kneecap. 'I start to screaming pretty much at the top of my lungs,' he said. 'It was like a sledgehammer.' He noted that many people are working on freelance contracts that don't offer medical insurance, and said officers sometimes brush aside reporters with credentials from smaller independent outlets, which have an important role in monitoring events on the ground. Some police officials — who were not authorized to speak publicly — said officers try their best to accommodate reporters, but the situation on the street involves split-second decisions in a chaotic environment where they find themselves being attacked. They also contend that journalists from newer outlets or those who primarily post on social media act in adversarial or confrontational ways toward officers. Los Angeles Press Club Press Rights Chair Adam Rose said he has been collecting examples of officers from local, state and federal agencies violating the rights of journalists — seemingly ignoring the lessons learned and promises made the wake of past protests. Rose said many of the incidents were documented in videos that journalists themselves posted on social media. As of Wednesday morning, the tally was 43 and counting. The mistreatment of journalists at the recent protests are part of a 'history of ugly treatment by police,' Rose said, which included the 1970 killing of one of the city's leading Latino media voices, Ruben Salazar, who had been covering a Chicano rights protest when he was struck by a tear-gas canister fired by a sheriff's deputy. Even in cases where police abuses are well-documented on video, discipline of the offending officers is rare, Rose said. With plunging revenues leading to the downsizing of many legacy newsrooms, a new generation of citizen journalists have taken a vital role in covering communities across the country — their reporting is protected as their mainstream counterparts, he said. 'The reality is police are not the ones who're allowed to decide who is press,' he said. Some larger news companies have taken to hiring protective details for their reporters in the field, largely in response to aggressive crowds. On Saturday, L.A. Daily News reporter Ryanne Mena was struck in the head by a projectile fired by law enforcement during a demonstration in Paramount. She wasn't sure whether it was a tear gas canister or less-lethal munition, but said she later sought medical treatment and was diagnosed with a concussion. The day before she was hit in the thigh by another projectile while reporting downtown outside the jail, she said. Covering a few prior protests had taught her to always be mindful of her surroundings and to 'never have my back toward anyone with a weapon.' 'It's still kind of unbelievable that that happened,' she said of her concussion. 'It's unacceptable that that happened that other journalists were targeted.' Times staff writers Connor Sheets and David Zahniser contributed to this report.
