Police impose curfew as LA protests enter Day 5
Los Angeles police say they have made “mass arrests” after a fifth day of protests over US President Donald Trump’s immigration raids.
Mayor Karen Bass declared an overnight curfew within a relatively small area of the city’s downtown district, saying businesses were being vandalised and looted.
Elsewhere, the immigration raids that triggered protests last Friday have continued, with deployed National Guard troops now protecting border control agents on enforcement operations.
Trump’s row with state officials ramped up after he deployed troops to LA. The president has now vowed to “liberate” the city, but has been accused by California Governor Gavin Newsom of an “assault” on democracy.
Trump defended his decision to send 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines, saying it was to prevent the city being “conquered by a foreign enemy”.
These troops lack the authority to make arrests, and have instead been tasked only with protecting federal property and personnel.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth backed Trump’s move, telling a Senate hearing that sending the troops to Los Angeles was “lawful and constitutional”.
Newsom hit back at the president: “He again chose escalation; he chose more force.” The California governor, who is seen as a potential presidential contender for the Democratic Party, warned that “other states are next”.
After the LA curfew came into force at 20:00 local time on Tuesday (03:00 GMT on Wednesday), police moved through downtown areas, firing rubber bullets to try to disperse crowds.
Explaining the curfew, Bass said she wanted “to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting”. She added: “We reached a tipping point.”
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) later said “multiple groups” were still congregating in the district. Before the curfew came into effect, LA police chief Jim McDonnell said 197 people had been arrested on Tuesday. The majority of arrests since the protests began have been for failing to disperse.
The curfew order affects an area of about one square mile in the second-largest city in the US. McDonnell said the order was not impacting other parts of the city.
“Some of the imagery of the protests and the violence gives the appearance as though this is a city-wide crisis, and it is not.”
Chaotic protests also sprung up on Tuesday in several other US cities:
- In Atlanta, Georgia, riot police used tear gas on protesters who set off fireworks towards officers at a demonstration attended by hundreds
- Police in New York told the BBC dozens were arrested for blocking vehicular traffic after several thousand marched into lower Manhattan
- Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent National Guard troops to San Antonio, where immigration rallies are planned
LA’s mayor said 23 businesses had been looted on Monday night, though she did not provide an estimate of financial losses to the city from the at-times violent disorder.
Elsewhere in the sprawling city, it was a normal Tuesday. Tens of thousands of children went to school, commuter traffic choked the streets and tourists strolled Hollywood Boulevard.
Police chief Jim McDonnell said the curfew was “not about silencing voices”, but was a necessary measure to save lives and safeguard property.
Bass also said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had provoked the unrest by conducting raids on Latino areas in the city in recent days.
“If [the raids are] going to go on for 30 days, and that’s what the rumour is, and, if we want to see our city peaceful again, I will call upon the administration one more time to end the raids,” she said.
National Guard troops, who were previously guarding federal buildings, began assisting ICE agents with their “daily enforcement operations” on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the border agency told the BBC.
Marines were also guarding federal officials and property, Marines Corps General Eric Smith said. They do not have the authority to arrest.
The military deployment to the LA area will cost $134m (£99m), the Pentagon said.
Trump described the protests as a “full-blown assault on peace and public order” while addressing troops at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina.
The Republican president said he plans to use “every asset at our disposal to quell the violence”.
