L.A. police declare downtown area off limits for 'unlawful assembly' after violent protests
California governor says state to sue Trump administration over unsolicited deployment of National Guard
Tensions in Los Angeles escalated Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd.
Many protesters dispersed as evening fell and police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and making arrests of people who don't leave.
Some of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 Freeway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.
It was the third day of demonstrations against Trump's immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 federal troops spurred anger and fear among some residents. The protests in Los Angeles, a city of four million people, were centred in several blocks of downtown.
Several dozen people were arrested throughout the weekend of protest. One was detained Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police, and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers. Earlier, a prominent union leader was arrested, accused of impeding law enforcement.
A camera operator from the British Broadcasting Corporation and a reporter for Australia's Nine Network reported being hit by rubber bullets, those broadcasters said.
The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the L.A. area climbed above 100, federal authorities said.
California officials push back on government claims
Starting Sunday morning, National Guard troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Crowds chanted "shame" and "go home". After some protesters closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street.
Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 Freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon, while southbound lanes remained shut down.
Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles.
Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom requested Trump remove the guard members in a letter Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a "serious breach of state sovereignty."
Their deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state's national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration's mass deportation efforts. Newsom said the state planned to file a lawsuit over the National Guard deployment as early as Monday.
Newsom has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. He mocked Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles and said on MSNBC that Trump never floated deploying the Guard during a Friday phone call. He called Trump a "stone cold liar."
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the federal response was unnecessary and was serving to escalate tensions.
"What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration," she said in an afternoon news conference.
"This is about another agenda; this isn't about public safety."
Their admonishments did not deter the administration.
"It's a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement in response.
The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began on Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighbouring Compton.
Federal agents arrested immigrants in the city's fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot.
Demonstrators attempted to block border patrol vehicles, hurling rocks and chunks of cement. In response, agents in riot gear unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell pushed back against claims by the Trump administration that the LAPD had failed to help federal authorities when protests broke out Friday after a series of immigration raids. His department responded as quickly as it could and had not been notified in advance of the raids and therefore was not pre-positioned for protests, he said.
'They're not gonna get away with it': Trump
The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops.
The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
In a directive Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States."
He said he had authorized the deployment of 2,000 members of the National Guard.
Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, N.J., Sunday that there were "violent people" in Los Angeles "and they're not gonna get away with it."
About 500 marines stationed at Twentynine Palms, about 200 kilometres east of Los Angeles were in a "prepared to deploy status" Sunday afternoon, according to the U.S. Northern Command.