LA's top cop blames masked professional ‘anarchists' for chaos at ICE protests and vows slew of arrests
The chief of the Los Angeles Police Department is promising that the number of arrests made at the protests roiling Los Angeles will 'pale in comparison' to current numbers, as violent clashes continue to spin 'out of control.'
Jim McDonnell blasted hooded 'anarchists' who, he said, intend to cause mayhem and try to 'get away with whatever they can,' at odds with the intentions of other peaceful protesters.
It comes as violent clashes continue in the city, prompting President Donald Trump to mobilize 2,000 more troops, and 700 U.S. Marines to assist with law enforcement. The president's decision bypassed the authorization of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a move to federalize the state's National Guard troops, which has not happened since the civil rights protests of the mid-1960's .
In a statement Monday, McDonnell said the LAPD had not received any 'formal' notice that Marines would be arriving in the city but Trump said a day later that he has ordered their deployment to LA.
However, speaking at a news conference the sheriff came close to contradicting the comments of both Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, who have said the decision to bring in national guardsmen and other reinforcements was 'inflammatory' and 'unnecessary.'
'Do we need them? Well, looking at tonight, this thing has gotten out of control,' McDonnell said of the national guard troops, adding that he needed to know more about the role of the troops before deciding if they were needed.
'When I look at the people who are out there doing the violence, that's not the people that we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their First Amendment rights,' the police chief said.
'These are people who are all hooded up — they've got a hoodie on, they've got face masks on. They're people that do this all the time. They get away with whatever they can. Go out there from one civil unrest situation to another, using the same or similar tactics frequently. And they are connected.'
McDonnell added that during the clashes over the weekend some protestors had thrown fireworks and pieces of cinderblock at officers.
'That can kill you,' he said.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, at least 50 people were arrested over the weekend. These included a man accused of ramming a motorbike into a line of officers and another who threw a Molotov cocktail.
'The number of arrests we made will pale in comparison to the number of arrests that will be made,' McDonnell said, adding that comprehensive examinations of body-worn cameras and other evidence would be undertaken to identify agitators.
In his statement on Monday, McDonnell said that the arrival of federal military forces in LA, without 'clear coordination,' would present 'a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city.'
'The Los Angeles Police Department, alongside our mutual aid partners, have decades of experience managing large-scale public demonstrations, and we remain confident in our ability to do so professionally and effectively,' he said.
'That said, our top priority is the safety of both the public and the officers on the ground.
'We are urging open and continuous lines of communication between all agencies to prevent confusion, avoid escalation, and ensure a coordinated, lawful, and orderly response during this critical time."
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CBS News
7 minutes ago
- CBS News
Blue state governors to testify on "sanctuary policies" amid L.A. protests over immigration raids
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USA Today
15 minutes ago
- USA Today
Newsom v. Trump heads to court as protests against ICE raids spread: Updates
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Vox
35 minutes ago
- Vox
Trump is frustrated by his own success on immigration
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. The primary cause of this unrest has been less visible, but no less disorderly or disruptive. Behind the tensions in LA lies a radical escalation in the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants. To accelerate deportations, top White House adviser Stephen Miller instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in late May to dispense with norms and legal niceties that had previously constrained its activities, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Since then, the agency has deprioritized the removal of immigrants implicated in crimes, opting instead to target undocumented workers at random. It has stopped drafting lists of immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally and started arresting day laborers at businesses like Home Depot and 7-Eleven en masse, ensnaring some US citizens in the process. One such raid ignited the LA protests. Under Joe Biden, ICE had generally refrained from raiding schools, churches, and hospitals. Now it is reportedly arresting new mothers in maternity wards and then denying them their right to legal counsel. Most alarmingly, some ICE agents have allegedly embraced violent and unconstitutional tactics, according to the Journal's report. A union organizer for Washington farmworkers was driving his wife to her job at a tulip farm, when ICE agents stopped him, smashed in his car windows, and pulled him from the vehicle, all without showing badges or identification. A Russian man with a pending asylum case was reporting for his scheduled check-in at an ICE office, when a team of agents arrested him and then allegedly beat him. And ICE has not merely been targeting undocumented immigrants, but also those who exercise their First Amendment rights on the undocumented immigrants' behalf. In Irvine, California, ICE sent a 'phalanx of military vehicles' into an Orange County suburb to arrest a man who had allegedly posted fliers warning neighbors that ICE was in their area. The Trump administration's decision to greenlight such tactics might seem like an act of desperation — unable to stem the tide of undocumented immigration by conventional means, the White House is resorting to radical ones. But the opposite may be closer to the truth: The Trump administration is escalating its war on migration because it is winning that conflict. Unfortunately, the fruits of Donald Trump's victory appear to be weaker economic growth and more social unrest. Related The LA protests reveal what actually unites the Trump right Trump's bid to deter immigration has been wildly successful Trump campaigned on a promise to end the Biden-era surge in unauthorized immigration and restore order at the border. He has largely done so. Border crossings were already slowing during Biden's final year in office, after his administration tightened rules around asylum last summer. But inflows have plunged even further under Trump. Through belligerent rhetoric and restrictionist policies, the president has successfully deterred both legal and illegal migration into the United States. Over the past two months, America witnessed the largest decline in its foreign-born workforce since the pandemic in 2020. This contraction was driven partly by a collapse in unauthorized border crossings. Between January 2022 and June 2024, US Customs and Border Protection encountered an average of 200,000 people per month at America's Southwest border. According to an analysis of government data from Deutsche Bank, that figure has fallen to just 12,000 people per month since Trump's inauguration. How Trump's success on immigration is fueling his radicalism Yet the Trump administration has found little satisfaction in this success. And for a simple reason: The slowdown in border crossings has made it more difficult for the president to exceed Biden's deportation numbers. When border control was encountering 200,000 migrants each month, it was easy for the government to rack up high deportation totals. Such new arrivals possessed fewer legal protections than longtime US residents and were already in the government's custody. Although many qualified for the asylum process, border control could swiftly expel those who did not. Trump's success in deterring border crossings has therefore reduced the pace of deportations. Headlines earlier this year spotlighted the fact that Trump was deporting immigrants at a slower rate than Biden. Shortly after Trump took office, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy posted on X, 'In the first week, Trump removed 7,300 people. On average, Biden was removing 15,000 a week…These guys are terrible at everything.' Such unfavorable comparisons apparently displeased Trump. The Wall Street Journal suggests that it was Trump's failure to exceed 'the number of daily deportations carried out by the Biden administration in its final year' that led Stephen Miller to give ICE its new, draconian marching orders. Unable to generate flashy deportation statistics by turning away new arrivals at the border, the administration has opted to ramp up enforcement against law-abiding, long-time US residents throughout the country — and to do so in a violent and seemingly lawless manner. Trump's handling of immigration has been economically and socially destructive (but politically popular) If Trump's success at deterring immigration has brought him little contentment, it has brought his country little discernible benefit. The slowdown in new arrivals is hurting the US economy. Compared to native-born workers, immigrants are more willing to relocate to US communities that have labor shortages, or to enter industries suffering from chronic shortfalls of workers, such as construction, food processing, and childcare. The mass entrance of migrants into the US during the Biden administration therefore helped to mitigate supply chain disruptions and reduce inflationary pressures in key sectors. This immigration surge was also immensely beneficial for economic growth and the national debt. America has an aging population. As a result, we need immigrants to sustain the growth of our workforce and shore up funding for Medicare and Social Security. Partly for these reasons, the Biden-era surge in immigration increased America's projected economic growth over the coming decade by upwards of $8.9 trillion, while reducing its expected federal deficits by $900 billion, according to an analysis from the Dallas Federal Reserve. Trump's successful deterrence of immigration threatens to reverse these gains, slowing growth and exacerbating labor shortages in construction, agriculture, and other key industries. According to Deutsche Bank, the collapse of immigration under Trump 'represents a far more sustained negative supply shock for the economy than tariffs.' Although immigration restriction is bad for the economy, many have argued that it's beneficial for political stability and social peace. After all, large surges of immigration tend to induce nativist backlashes. And Biden's failure to avert a historically large jump in migration plausibly helped Trump return to the White House. For the moment, however, the collapse in border crossings appears to be increasing social tension and political unrest. The migration slowdown has translated into lower deportation figures, which has led the administration to embrace radical enforcement tactics, which have predictably sown mass protest and clashes between civilians and agents of the state. We are therefore getting all the economic harms of immigration restriction, without its theoretical benefits for social harmony.
