Police order LA protesters in downtown to go home
LOS ANGELES: Police declared all of downtown Los Angeles to be an unlawful assembly area and ordered protesters to go home on Sunday night after a third day of violence hit demonstrations against President Donald Trump's immigration policy. National Guard troops — deployed by Trump at the weekend to help quell the protests in a move that California Governor Gavin Newsom called unlawful — guarded federal government buildings on Sunday. The unrest in Los Angeles has become a major flashpoint in Trump's signature effort to clamp down on
illegal immigration.
The Republican president has pledged to deport record numbers of people who are in the country illegally and to lock down the US-Mexico border, setting the border enforcement agency ICE a daily goal of arresting at least 3,000 migrants. California state and local officials, mainly Democrats, accuse Trump of inflaming initially small-scale protests by mounting a federal response. He calls the protesters insurrectionists.
Several self-driving cars from Alphabet's Waymo were set ablaze on a downtown street on Sunday evening. Los Angeles police said some protesters had thrown concrete projectiles, bottles and other items at police. Police declared several rallies to be unlawful assemblies and later extended that to include the whole downtown area. Police on horseback tried to control the crowds.
Demonstrators shouted "Shame on you!" at police and some appeared to throw objects, video images showed. One group blocked the 101 Freeway, a major downtown thoroughfare. City Police Chief Jim McDonnell told a media briefing on Sunday evening that people had a right to protest peacefully but the violence he had seen by some was "disgusting" and the protests were getting out of control. Police said they had arrested 10 people on Sunday and 29 the previous night, adding arrests were continuing.
California Governor Newsom, a Democrat, said he requested the Trump administration to withdraw its order to deploy 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles County, calling it unlawful. Newsom said in an interview with MSNBC he planned to sue the administration over the deployment, adding that Trump "has created the conditions" around the protests. He accused the president of trying to manufacture a crisis and of violating California's state sovereignty. Asked if the National Guard was needed, the police chief, McDonnell, said police would not "go to that right away," but added, "Looking at the violence tonight, I think we've got to make a reassessment".
In a social media post, Trump called on McDonnell to do so. "He should, right now!!!" Trump added. "Don't let these thugs get away with this. Make America great again!!!" The White House disputed Newsom's characterisation, saying in a statement, "Everyone saw the chaos, violence and lawlessness." Earlier on Sunday, about a dozen National Guard members, along with Department of Homeland Security personnel, pushed back a group of demonstrators outside a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, video showed.
The US Northern Command said 300 members of the California National Guard had been deployed to three spots in the Los Angeles area. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told CBS programme "Face the Nation" that the National Guard would provide safety around buildings to people engaged in peaceful protest and to law enforcement.
In a social media post on Sunday, Trump called the demonstrators "violent, insurrectionist mobs" and said he was directing his cabinet officers "to take all such action necessary" to stop what he called riots. Despite Trump's language, he has not invoked the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that empowers a president to deploy the US military to suppress events like civil disorder. Asked on Sunday whether he was considering doing so, he said, "It depends on whether or not there's an insurrection."
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed the Trump administration for inciting tension by sending in the National Guard. She also condemned protesters who became violent. "I don't want people to fall into the chaos that I believe is being created by the administration completely unnecessarily," she told a press conference. — Reuters
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6 hours ago
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This is what autocracy looks like
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Such violence should be condemned both because it's immoral and because it's wildly counterproductive; each burning Waymo or smashed storefront is an in-kind gift to the administration. It's important to understand that for this administration, protests needn't be violent to be considered an illegitimate uprising. The presidential memorandum calling out the National Guard refers to both violent acts and any protests that 'inhibit' law enforcement. That definition would seem to include peaceful demonstrations around the site of ICE raids. In May, for example, armed federal agents stormed two popular Italian restaurants in San Diego looking for workers in the country illegally; they handcuffed staff members and took four people into custody. As they did so, an outraged crowd gathered outside, chanting 'shame' and for a time blocking the agents from leaving. Under Trump's order, the military could target these people as insurrectionists. 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If you saw all this in any other country — soldiers sent to crush dissent, union leaders arrested, opposition politicians threatened — it would be clear that autocracy had arrived. The question, now, is whether Americans who hate tyranny can be roused to respond. Many people have speculated that the confrontation in Los Angeles will play into Trump's hands, allowing him to pose as a champion of law and order bringing criminal mobs to heel. Maybe they're right; Trump is a master demagogue with a gift for creating the scenes of conflict his supporters crave. We now know that TV celebrity Dr Phil McGraw was on the ground with ICE during the raids that set off the Los Angeles unrest, filming a prime-time special. The administration appeared to want a spectacle. Public opinion, however, isn't set in stone, which is why it's important for everyone who has a platform — politicians, veterans, cultural and religious leaders — to denounce the administration's authoritarian overreach. Administration officials like Stephen Miller are pushing the idea that Los Angeles is 'occupied territory,' as evidenced by the foreign flags some protesters are carrying. Americans who still have hope for democracy should be saying, as loudly and as often as they can, that this is an insultingly stupid lie to justify a dictatorial power grab. Yes, America has lurched to the right since Trump's first term, and he can get away with abuses now that would have set off mass outrage then. Plenty of Democrats, burned by the backlash against Black Lives Matter and large-scale illegal immigration, would rather not have a fight over disorder in Los Angeles. 'For months, Democrats scarred by the politics of the issue sought to sidestep President Donald Trump's immigration wars — focusing instead on the economy, tariffs or, in the case of deportations, due process concerns,' reported Politico. 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