Marines to patrol LA streets as some residents say: ‘Our city is not at all on fire'

News24

a day ago

US Marines will be on the streets of Los Angeles within days to help control protests.
Democrats have condemned the Trump administration's action as authoritarian.
Some in the city say the scale of the protests is exaggerated.
US Marines will join National Guard troops on the streets of Los Angeles within two days, officials said on Wednesday, and would be authorised to detain anyone who interferes with immigration officers on raids or protesters who confront federal agents.
US President Donald Trump ordered the deployments over the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom, sparking a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and animating protests that have spread from Los Angeles to other major cities, including New York, Atlanta and Chicago.
Los Angeles on Wednesday endured a sixth day of protests that have been largely peaceful but occasionally punctuated by violence, mostly contained to a few blocks of the city's downtown area.
The protests broke out last Friday in response to a series of immigration raids. Trump in turn called in the National Guard on Saturday, then summoned the Marines on Monday.
'If I didn't act quickly on that, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now,' said Trump at an event at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
READ | 'The president wants a big show': Trump sends in Marines as night curfew imposed on Los Angeles
State and local leaders dispute that, saying Trump has only escalated tensions with an unnecessary and illegal deployment of federal troops, while Democrats nationally have condemned his action as authoritarian.
AFP reported that six days after unrest began - prompting the US president to send soldiers into the streets, over the furious protests of local officials - life in the City of Angels was going on largely as normal.
'Everything is hunky dory right here at Ground Zero,' Lynn Sturgis, a retired teacher who was protesting outside the federal complex that has been at the heart of the demonstrations in Downtown Los Angeles, told AFP.
Our city is not at all on fire, it's not burning down, as our terrible leader is trying to tell you.
Lynn Sturgis
'Not at all... this is very calm,' protester Ellen Carpenter, a retired federal worker who was demonstrating alongside Sturgis, told AFP.
'I lived in Washington, DC for a long time, so I was part of very large protests there, you know, millions and millions of people. This is a little wimpy by comparison.'
'This whole thing has been manufactured by the current administration,' Sturgis said.
According to Reuters, Trump is carrying out a campaign promise to deport immigrants, employing forceful tactics consistent with the norm-breaking political style that got him elected twice.
'President Trump promised to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in American history and left-wing riots will not deter him in that effort,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.The US military said on Wednesday that a battalion of 700 Marines had concluded training specific to the Los Angeles mission, including de-escalation and crowd control.
They would join National Guard under the authority of a federal law known as Title 10 within 48 hours, not to conduct civilian policing but to protect federal officers and property, the military said.
'Title 10 forces may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances such as to stop an assault, to prevent harm to others, or to prevent interference with federal personnel performing their duties,' the Northern Command said.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: 'If any rioters attack ICE law enforcement officers, military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain them until law enforcement makes the arrest.'US Army Major General Scott Sherman, who commands the task force of Marines and Guardsmen, told reporters the Marines will not carry live ammunition in their rifles, but they will carry live rounds.
Newsom and the state of California have sued Trump and the Defence Department to stop the deployment, maintaining that none of the Title 10 conditions were met to justify military deployment - such as a when the US is under threat from a foreign invasion or rebellion.
California is also seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately stop the National Guard and Marines from participating in civilian law enforcement.
A hearing on that restraining order is scheduled for Thursday in San Francisco federal court.
The Trump administration argued in a court filing ahead of the hearing that the president has the discretion to determine whether a 'rebellion or danger of a rebellion' requires a military response.In downtown LA, shortly before the second night of a curfew over a 2.5km2 area, relative calm was broken.
Police said demonstrators at one location threw commercial grade fireworks and rocks at officers. Another group of nearly 1 000 demonstrators were peacefully marching through downtown when police suddenly opened fired with less lethal munitions in front of City Hall.
Marlene Lopez, 39, a Los Angeles native, was demonstrating as flash bangs exploded just a few metres away.
'I am out here because of the fact that our human rights are being violated every day. If we give up, it's over. We have to stand our ground here in LA so that the nation will follow us,' Lopez said.
Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Other protests have also taken place in Santa Ana, a largely Mexican-American city about 50km to the south, as well as major cities such as Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston and Washington and San Antonio, Texas.
New York police said an unknown number of people had been taken into custody on Wednesday. On Tuesday New York police said they took 86 people into custody, of which 34 were arrested and charged, while the others received a criminal court summons.
The protests are set to expand on Saturday, when several activist groups have planned more than 1 800 anti-Trump demonstrations across the country.
That day, tanks and other armoured vehicles will rumble down the streets of Washington, DC, in a military parade marking the US Army's 250th anniversary and coinciding with Trump's 79th birthday.