LA demonstrations roll on as political tensions ramp up
Street demonstrations in Los Angeles are rolling on as political tensions ramp up. The city's mayor has said LA is being used as a 'test case' for the federal government to take over from local and state authorities. Now more troops are on their way. About 700 marines have been mobilised and the Pentagon has said the US President is deploying another two thousand National Guard Troops to the area after the initial order this weekend. LA correspondent Toni Waterman spoke to Lisa Owen.
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RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Curfew will go into effect in downtown Los Angeles tonight, Marines arrive
LA Mayor Karen Bass Photo: PATRICK T. FALLON A curfew for certain parts of downtown Los Angeles will be enacted tonight following days of protests that have, at times, turned violent. At a news conference, LA Mayor Karen Bass said she was seeking guidance on how long the curfew should be in place but said it will likely be in effect for a few days. "I will consult with elected leaders and law enforcement officials tomorrow on the continuation of the curfew but we certainly expect for it to last for several days," Bass said. The area of downtown Los Angeles where the curfew will take place is 1 square mile. The total area of the city is 502 square miles, she noted. The curfew will be in effect from 8 pm Tuesday to 6 am Wednesday. Anyone not deemed exempt who is within the designated curfew area will be "subject to arrest," according to LA Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell. "The curfew is a necessary measure to protect lives and safeguard property following several consecutive days of growing unrest throughout the city," McDonnell said. Who is exempt from the curfew? Protest arrests significantly increased over the course of a few days, McDonnell said. On Saturday, 27 people were arrested. Forty were arrested on Sunday and 114 people were arrested Monday. Authorities took 197 people into custody on Tuesday. "Following several consecutive days of growing unrest throughout the city since Saturday, we've seen a concerning escalation and unlawful and dangerous behavior," McDonnell said. He broke down Tuesday arrests by location, indicating that 67 people were taken into custody after "unlawfully occupying" the 101 Freeway. "Let me be clear that this behavior, blocking freeways, city streets and on ramps, refusing to comply with lawful dispersal orders and interfering with public safety operations, is dangerous, unlawful and won't be tolerated," McDonnell said. - CNN
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
US Marines arrive in LA on Trump's orders, against governor's wishes
By Brad Brooks , Phil Stewart , Idrees Ali and Dietrich Knauth , Reuters US Marines with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, who were placed in an alert status over the weekend to support US Northern Command's mission, rehearsing nonlethal tactics in the greater Los Angeles area. Photo: JUAN TORRES / US MARINE CORPS / AFP Hundreds of US Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday under orders from President Donald Trump, who has also activated 4000 National Guard troops to quell protests in the city despite objections from California Governor Gavin Newsom that the deployments are politically motivated. The city has seen five days of public protests since the Trump administration launched a series of immigration raids on Friday. State officials said Trump's response was an extreme overreaction to mostly peaceful demonstrations . About 700 Marines were in a staging area in the Seal Beach area about 50km south of Los Angeles, awaiting deployment to specific locations, a US official said. The Marines do not have arrest authority and will protect federal property and personnel, according to military officials. There were approximately 2,100 Guard troops in greater Los Angeles on Tuesday, with more on the way, the official said. California sued Trump and the Defense Department on Monday , seeking to block the deployment of federal troops, then on Tuesday sought an immediate ruling on the narrow issue of their participation in police enforcement. The judge set a hearing on that question for Thursday. California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Reuters the state was concerned about allowing federal troops to protect personnel, saying there was a risk that could violate an 1878 law that generally forbids the US military, including the National Guard, from taking part in civilian law enforcement. "The federal property part I understand - defending and protecting federal buildings," Bonta said. "But protecting personnel likely means accompanying ICE agents into communities and neighbourhoods, and protecting functions could mean protecting the ICE function of enforcing the immigration law." US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday posted photos on X of National Guard troops accompanying ICE officers on an immigration raid. Photos from today's ICE Los Angeles immigration enforcement operation. Marines are trained for conflicts around the world - from the Middle East to Africa - and are also used for rapid deployments in case of emergencies, such as threats to US embassies. Some units also learn riot and crowd control techniques. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Photo: AFP Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass emphasised at a press conference that the unrest has been limited to a few downtown blocks and she was considering a curfew for downtown Los Angeles to stem violence in the area, including looting of stores. She drew a distinction between the majority of demonstrators protesting peacefully in support of immigrants and a smaller number of agitators she blamed for violence and looting. She said she planned to call Trump on Tuesday. "I want to tell him to stop the raids," she said. "I want to tell him that this is a city of immigrants." Trump has justified his decision to deploy troops by describing the protests as a violent occupation, a characterization that Newsom and Bass have said is grossly exaggerated. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, the president said LA would be "burning right now" if not for the deployments, and that Guard troops would remain until there is no danger. Trump left open the possibility of invoking the centuries-old Insurrection Act, which would allow the military to take part directly in civilian law enforcement. Photo: AFP/ETIENNE LAURENT The protests since Friday have been largely peaceful, but there have been scattered clashes, with some demonstrators throwing rocks at officers, blocking a highway and setting cars ablaze. Police have responded with "less lethal" munitions such as pepper balls, as well as flash-bang grenades and tear gas. The Los Angeles Police Department said it arrested more than 100 people on Monday, raising the regional total since Saturday to more than 180. On Tuesday, police holding shields and wearing helmets formed a line close to protesters hoisting banners with slogans such as "When injustice becomes the law, resistance becomes duty." Protests have concentrated outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, where many detained migrants are held. The Trump administration has vowed to intensify immigration raids in response. Protests have taken place in other cities including Chicago, where on Tuesday about 100 protesters marched through downtown, blocking traffic and carrying signs calling for ICE to be abolished. Christina Berger, 39, said it was heartbreaking to hear about children who are afraid of being separated from their families due to immigration raids, adding, "I just want to give some hope to my friends and neighbours." Fireworks explode around police officers in riot gear during a protest in response to federal immigration operations in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, on 9 June, 2025. Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP Business owners in LA's Little Tokyo neighbourhood - where some of the most intense clashes between police and protesters occurred late on Monday - were washing graffiti off storefront windows and sweeping up litter on Tuesday. Every building on Little Tokyo's main streets was hit with graffiti, except for a public defender's office that stood untouched. Frank Chavez, 53, manager of an office building in the neighbourhood, was sweeping glass shards from an entrance door that had been shattered after midnight by a young masked man wielding a skateboard, according to security video that Chavez showed a Reuters reporter. "I agree with what the protesters are defending - they're standing up for the Latino community," Chavez said. "But there are a few carrying out vandalism and violence, and that must be stopped." Chavez and other business owners said they did not support the immigration raids and felt Trump's response was only fanning the flames. - Reuters
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
An unrestrained Trump defends deploying military to Los Angeles during Fort Bragg visit
By Kevin Liptak and Alayna Treene , CNN Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI When President Donald Trump returned from a Bastille Day visit to Paris during his first term, he asked his military brass to organize a parade akin to the one he'd watched march down the Champs-Élysées. His defense secretary at the time, James Mattis, said he'd rather "swallow acid," according to a book written by a former staffer. Trump later received a comparable response from another defense secretary, Mark Esper, when he floated using active duty troops on American soil to quell violent protests. "The option to use active duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations," Esper told reporters in 2020. Times have changed. "We will use every asset at our disposal to quell the violence and restore law and order right away," Trump said on Tuesday during a visit to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he defended sending the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles . "We're not going … to wait for a governor that's never going to call and watch cities burn," he added. Free of advisers who acted as guardrails to his most extreme impulses, and more determined than ever to demonstrate strength, Trump has reshaped how a president uses the US military during his second term in office. This week's troop deployments in Los Angeles , which come ahead of a major military parade through Washington, DC, on Saturday, illustrate just how much the restraints once placed on Trump's use of US servicemen and women have evaporated. No longer does Trump appear convinced, as he did in 2020, that activating a state's National Guard troops against the wishes of governors is against the law. Nor does he seem particularly bothered by the view of some former military leaders, who told him during his first term that major military parades are the purview of dictators, not democratically elected leaders. Some former military officials, along with some current officials speaking privately, have voiced concern about the juxtaposition of tanks parading through Washington potentially at the same moment US troops are deployed on California streets. "For me, it's a negative split screen moment," retired Adm. James Stavridis, the former NATO supreme allied commander, told "CNN This Morning." "You're doing this pretty unusual visual of tanks rolling through our capital, and across the country in Los Angeles, you're putting US Marines - the best combat shock troops in the world… they're being deployed against largely peaceful protesters," he said. "I think that's a troubling split screen. It will be difficult, appropriately difficult for the American people to digest what they're looking at." Trump heralded the weekend spectacle in front of a sympathetic crowd on Tuesday. "And Saturday is going to be a big day in Washington, DC, and a lot of people say we don't want to do that. We do. We want to show off a little bit," he told service members and their families. The event was arranged like a typical political-style rally, albeit comprised of hundreds of uniformed troops, military families and others, some of whom booed in agreement when Trump criticized former President Joe Biden. Upon entering the event site, attendees were greeted with the sight of military tanks and fighter vehicles spread out across the large field as part of a demonstration of the Army's capabilities - known as a static display, members of the Army on the ground told CNN. An Avenger Stinger missile vehicle, Sentinel radar and different types of Army tanks were included in the display. When he arrived, Trump watched demonstrations of special operators and paratroopers. In interviews with CNN, several members of the military in the crowd showed appreciation for the president's visit and dismissed concerns that he's overstepped in ordering the National Guard and US Marines to Los Angeles to respond to the protests in the city without request from the governor - an action that's without recent precedent. George Ahouman, a mechanic specialist in the Army's 91 Bravos group, told CNN of the move: "It's always a tough decision to make. We have to do what we have to do regardless, you know. So if the bad guy is acting bad, we gotta, you know, knuckle down and do what we're supposed to, that's what we signed up for." Toby Cash, in the same division as Ahouman, said: "It's a tough topic to talk about. At the end of the day we've just got to follow orders." Ahouman added, however, that he's grateful Trump came to visit Fort Bragg and will hold a parade to honor the Army's 250th anniversary. "I feel like he's kind of showing his love to the troops and to the Army. You know, we usually don't get recognition like that in the past, so I think it's pretty good." Will Schmidt and Raymond Cervantes, both members of the Army's 57th Sapper company in the 27th engineer battalion, made similar arguments. "Personally, I'm in support of it," Schmidt told CNN of Trump's decision to deploy troops to Los Angeles. "It's kind of like one of the reasons we have a National Guard, and a lot of it is disaster relief, but it's also civil unrest and stuff." Cervantes argued the president's visit to the Army base - which serves as headquarters for US Army Special Operations Command, where Green Berets and the Rangers are based - and his plans to host a military parade in Washington, "shows he cares." "Even for those who don't like him as an individual, he's still showing he appreciates us," Cervantes said. Fort Bragg itself has come to embody some of the ways Trump is working to move the military away from what he views as the liberal excesses of the previous administration. Originally named for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general, it was renamed to Fort Liberty in 2023 amid a push to strip names of Confederate leaders from military installations. But Trump's administration reversed the decision, restoring the Fort Bragg name earlier this year - but now citing World War II paratrooper Roland Bragg as the namesake. On Tuesday, Trump announced his administration would be changing back the names of several other bases originally named after Confederates. Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI Trump's visit to Fort Bragg was intended as a kickoff to a week of celebrations marking the US Army's 250th birthday, which will culminate in Saturday's parade in Washington. That event will see a massive amount of military hardware and personnel being paraded through Washington, including 28 Abrams tanks weighing 70 tons each rolling down Constitution Avenue. Local officials have voiced concern about potential damage to the city's streets, which could cost millions of dollars to repair. Military officials have downplayed the cost of the parade, which is also set to include a World War II-era B-25 bomber, 6,700 soldiers, 50 helicopters, 34 horses, two mules and one dog. But even some Republicans have expressed skepticism about the parade. "Well, look, it's the president's call. I wouldn't spend the money if it were me," Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said when asked about the event. "The United States of America is the most powerful country in all of human history. We're a lion. And a lion doesn't have to tell you it's a lion. Everybody else in the jungle knows," he said. Unlike his predecessors during Trump's first term, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has demonstrated only enthusiasm for Trump's parade plans. Nor has Hegseth voiced any misgivings over Trump's decision to deploy National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of California's Democratic leaders. Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI Trump has long mused about using military force to clamp down on protests or riots in the United States, including during his first term as violence broke out following the killing of George Floyd in 2020. His aides drafted a proclamation that would send thousands of active duty troops using the Insurrection Act, but top advisers at the time - including Esper, Attorney General Bill Barr and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley - encouraged him against taking that step. Trump appeared in 2020 to have been persuaded that activating the National Guard without a governor's request would be illegal. "Look, we have laws. We have to go by the laws," Trump said during an ABC town hall at the time. "We can't move in the National Guard. I can call insurrection, but there's no reason to ever do that." "We can't call in the National Guard unless we're requested by a governor," Trump went on to explain. Trump later came to regret following that advice. "You have to remember, I've been here before, and I went right by every rule," he said Tuesday before departing the White House for Fort Bragg. "And I waited for governors to say, send in the National Guard. They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do and they just wouldn't do it. It kept going on and on." - CNN
