7NEWS US Correspondent Rob Scott details experience covering LA protests including being pepper sprayed

7NEWS

a day ago

The violent clashes between law enforcement and angry protesters has left downtown LA looking and feeling less like one of the world's most famous cities and more like a third world conflict zone.
Countless buildings have been defaced, covered in graffiti, windows smashed and businesses looted.
The roads are filled with the burnt out carcasses of cars, hundreds of spent rubber bullet rounds and empty tear gas canisters.
They are reminders of the running streets battles between police and demonstrators.
The angry uprisings have been sparked by immigration raids on Home Depot stores and other businesses, where federal agents came searching for undocumented workers to round up and deport.
Those orders came directly from the president.
Watching small gatherings quickly swell to heaving mobs and LAPD officers and sheriffs deputies using batons, flash bang grenades and pepper spray to disperse the people they swore to protect. At times didn't seem real.
Until it did.
Reporting live on Sunrise from outside the federal detention centre, where some of the suspected illegal immigrants had been taken to, I was hit with pepper spray.
The burning eyes, stinging skin and gagging it causes is exactly why it's so effective at neutralising furious mobs.
It hurt.
After flushing their own eyes, protesters generously helped pour water into mine to relieve the agony.
The day before while on the ground in Paramount, south east of downtown LA at the scene of another protest, I copped what I can only assume was a rubber bullet to the jaw.
Thankfully the round had ricocheted off something first before it hit me.
It was painful, but nothing like the direct hit my colleague Lauren Tomasi copped to the back of her leg.
It wasn't pleasant but we go into these situations and put ourselves in these positions knowing full well what could happen and we need to be there to be able to give an accurate account of what's happening to keep Australians up to date.
And what's happening is frightening.
Watching protesters smashing pavers and digging up rocks from flower beds to hurl from freeway bridges onto police officers heads below, trying to stop traffic is scary.
Seeing them fire commercial grade fireworks directly at Sheriffs deputies is unnerving, but this is the reality of America today.
Donald Trump's promises to deport millions of illegal aliens helped him back into the White House, but in California, where there are nearly two million undocumented workers, his policies have sparked an uprising.
One he's now trying to crush - deploying soldiers and marines to stamp out a rebellion the Governor of California says he instigated.
LA's mayor Karen Bass says the President is using the city of Angels as an example to the rest of America of what could happen if people resist.
But despite the apocalyptic scenes it's important to note the violent clashes are isolated and largely contained to only a few streets and a handful of blocks - and most Angelenos are living their lives as normal.
For now.